Anne Hidalgo, the Socialist Mayor of Paris, is facing heat after it became public that she used taxpayer money to pay for expensive Dior dresses and a Burberry coat, alongside lavish travel expenses.
After a long legal battle, the association for Transparence Citoyenne (Citizen Transparency) was able to retrieve part of the expense reports of the Paris Mayor.
It found that over four years, Hidalgo had claimed €210,000 in reimbursed expenses.
The association received 118 receipts, corresponding to €61,513.39 worth of reimbursements between June 25, 2020 and April 15, 2024.
The receipts were seen by many as highly questionable, angering the wider public faced with austerity and government cuts as both France’s and Paris’ budgets face big shortfalls.
Investigative journalists at Mediapart, who also examined the matter, uncovered that a total of €84,200 was spent on the Mayor’s representation expenses between 2020 and 2024.
🔴 TRANSPRANCE CITOYENNE PUBLIE LES NOTES DE FRAIS D'ANNE HIDALGO EN INTÉGRALITÉ 🔴
Comme promis, vous retrouverez tous ces documents, classés chronologiquement, dans le fil ci-dessous. ⬇️🧵
A vos claviers pour commenter ces dépenses ! pic.twitter.com/YT5zgqawJO
— Transparence Citoyenne (@TransparenceCit) September 17, 2025
Hidalgo was reimbursed for €6,320 worth of Dior dresses in 2024, a Burberry coat costing €3,067 in 2023, a Dior blouse worth €1,120 in 2021 and a Burberry Jacket costing €1,087 in 2020. In 2022, she bought an Eric Bompard poncho for €340.
The Socialist politician also had the taxpayer pay for high-end fashion items from BHV Marais, Repetto and Gérard Darel, priced between €500 and €1,000.
There were also cheaper purchases, for example a sweater for €153.5 and a dress for €180 bought on December 15.
Next to luxury outfits, a large part of the expenses went on travel, with €125,000 spent between July 2020 and December 2023.
In 2023, Hidalgo went to a UN climate summit in New York for €9,810. A year earlier she visited the city again at a cost of €10,034. In 2021, she visited the Paralympic Games in Tokyo, claiming a bill of €12,687.
Guillaume Leroy, president of Citizen Transparency, noted that Paris officials were making it difficult to gain access to the public documents, despite their legal obligation to do so.
He said it took him months to receive the information and even then he only received partial data. Leroy added that he obtained global expenses for each trip but did not receive information on any travel expenses in detail.
There were also questions about Hidalgo’s trip to Poland, in April, 2022, because she stayed there for several days but no accommodation costs levied, something now being investigated by the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office.
The opposition parties in Paris were not happy with the expenses.
Aurélien Véron, of the centre-right Les Républicains”, said that the Paris Council “has never voted a special mandate for these trips”.
He alleged in a tweet yesterday that between 2020 and 2024, Hidalgo bought €84,000 worth of clothes with public funds.
Entre 2020 et 2024, 84.000€ de vêtements (dont des robes et un manteau à plus de 3.000€) achetés par #AnneHidalgo avec des fonds publics : « la maire de Paris incarne la France à l’étranger. »
Ah bon ? Le Conseil de Paris n’a jamais voté de mandat spécial pour ces déplacements. pic.twitter.com/7UowVPruFW— Aurélien Véron (@aurelien_veron) September 17, 2025
Paul Hatte of the local Union Capitale Party said Hidalgo’s apparent expenses were “mind-blowing” and highlighted that “no entrepreneur or salesman has the right to declare his suits as a professional office”.
Hidalgo has a budget of €20,000 per year. Only €714 remained of this at the end of 2024. News outlet Mediapart found there was €4,900 left in 2023, €5,800 in 2022, €14 in 2021 and €2,800 in 2020.
In a reaction to the publication of the expenses, Hidalgo’s office said: “The Mayor of Paris participates in many official performances throughout the year. Paris, the capital of France, was the host city of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Anne Hidalgo receives heads of state and foreign delegations throughout the year.
“Clothing purchased as part of its entertainment expenses is used for this purpose.”
It also noticed: “The mayor of Paris does not use her representation expenses to buy jewelry and everything is declared,” referring to an investigation into centre-right opposition leader Rachida Dati, who did not declare her jewellery with an estimated worth of €420,000.
While emphasising that “we respect the framework set by the ethics commission”, Hidalgo’s office acknowledged: “We regret that she [Hidalgo] did not always provide satisfactory answers.
“The City of Paris transmits the requested documents but it can happen that the people or associations who request them are not satisfied with the elements transmitted,” it said.
Hildago’s team accused Citizen Transparency of being financed by the Conservative billionaire, Edouard Stérin and not always devoid of political ulterior motive. Leroy added that his organisation had made similar demands for transparency from right-wing authorities in other cities.
Paris city hall told newspaper Le Parisien yesterday: “The representation expenses of the Mayor of Paris and the mayors of the arrondissements are regulated,” and that the responsible authorities executed an audit of these expenses and had “not issued any comment”.
Hidalgo had been grilled by other associations on her expenses before but after several years of judicial battle, she received a favourable ruling by a judge. He ruled that she did not have to give extra information on her restaurant bill, travel expenses or purchases on clothing.
Judicial experts noted that it should have wider repercussions regarding business expenses, because either the Paris Mayor has misappropriated public funds, in which case she must repay the money and be prosecuted, or expensive clothing is a professional representation expense, in which case entrepreneurs and employees should be able to include it in their business expenses to reduce their taxes, without risking prosecution for tax fraud.
In 2023 she was in hot water over an expensive trip to Tahiti to inspect the 2024 Olympics surfing venue, which critics called a disguised family vacation for visiting her daughter. The total cost for Hidalgo and five aides amounted to around €60,000, with an additional €10,000 spent on 5GB of mobile data.
It sparked investigations into the possible misuse of public funds, leading to a police raid on Paris City Hall in 2024
The mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, has delighted animal protectionists with a proposal to establish a task force to address the issue of peaceful coexistence with the rodents. https://t.co/GRy1YvXiYQ
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) June 9, 2023
