It becomes almost a habit: for the municipal council of this Wednesday, April 9 in the evening, a host committee awaits elected officials in front of the town hall of Noyon. It is certainly not the crowd of the monster demonstration of January, nor even the equivalent of the October demonstration, but approximately 90 people – according to territorial information – showed before the gates before the municipal councilors meet to vote the budget and the subsidies to associations.
The hot file of last year, born of dark cuts in associative subsidies, seems again to the agenda while the mayor LR Sandrine Dauchelle decided to deprive a certain number of grant clubs, bringing their aid from several thousand euros to zero. Michel Lebrunthe leader of the protest of last year, and technical director of the judo club, is the most spectacular victim. Completely deprived of municipal aid (11,000 euros in 2023, 9,800 in 2024, 4,800 last year, nothing this year), he “invited to a small picnic” in front of the town hall. While elected officials join the council room, in a sometimes tired voice, but with words always determined, he re -explained the case to the media and presents. By telling how, according to him, it is “people close to Deguise”, previous mayor, who were sanctioned. As well as those who led the revolt last year.
In the crowd, many clubs in support, including rugby, beekeepers, pentathlon, nautical club, needle passion, jazz in Noyon, Bleuets du Mont-Renaud…
The majority summoned to explain
It is to the council that the file continues. Invited to present the deliberation, the sports assistant Benoït GOULLIEUX Speaking, first recalling the “financial context forced for all local authorities”, but nevertheless “the wish of the city of Noyon to maintain its support for associations”. The advisers scrutinize the aid table. It is on the award criteria that the city is expected. Benoît Goullieux continues his reading: project of municipal interest, positive impact on the community, inclusion, financial viability of the project, transparency in the management of associations …
Dubitative hues on the opposition benches who, when she was in business, had worked with former sports director Richard Gukinski on specific criteria such as the number of members, their age, the level, the results … But not what at first glance justified that the Judo Club for example, the most important club in terms of members, a reference club in Picardy in terms of training, does not go to the trap this year.
Suspecting, of course, municipal revenge, it is the opposition advisor Hervé Grosjean who poses the subject on the table: “I do not find it normal at all that certain associations are found without any subsidy. Why the judo club which has between 400 and 500 licensees, a young person in the Olympic Games, lately another who did 3rd in the French championship, who makes Noyon shine in France and in Europe, finds himself without anything? ”
The mayor refusing to answer questions one after the other as however in any advice, then gives the floor to Carole Bureau-Bonnard, a former sports assistant, who “wonders about the award criteria”. She notes that she does not see a help for the Athletic Club, the Judo Club of course or even karting. Based on “Your social and educational criteria, for example, what difference between judo and basketball?” She asks. An assistant will specify that some of these associations have not made a request. For others, the files could be regularized. But this is not the case with judo.
On her criteria, mayor Sandrine Dauchelle tries to justify herself: “Before us, there was none”, dares Sandrine Dauchelle, before, probably before the enormity of the affirmation, to recover: “they were vague”.
The lapses of the sports assistant
The word goes to Benoît Goullieux who first explains that “in the criteria of allocation, there is the return of documents in time”, seeming to point shortcomings on the part of clubs today deprived of subsidy, but without saying more.
Leaving his notes, the sports assistant then makes an answer that seems more honest. He criticizes Carole Bureau-Bonnard for having, years ago, conditioned the help of the football club which he presided over his own resignation. The former assistant is choking, protests. Then Benoît Goullieux drops a slip of which he has the secret, believing that this episode today denied by the assistant “was also political”.
“Politics too”: the explanation is given. The mayor herself concedes it in less frank terms a few minutes later, evoking criteria “of ethics” and “public image” somewhat obscure, which could undoubtedly be translated by: we should no longer make fun of the mayor and his assistants on social networks.
“You are destroying the associative fabric”
In turn, former mayor Patrick Deguise believes that the city is “destroying the associative fabric”. He especially made the comparisons from one year to the next. To show, that apart from politically sanctioned clubs, the problem is also, according to him, in the melting of municipal aid: “less 66,000 euros for sports clubs” compared to the amounts scheduled last year before the dark cups of June, he announces. A few hundred euros, an overall amount finally equivalent to the one who had brought the clubs down in the street last year. The other sectors are doing better, he notes, in particular “cultural” except the cinema always striped from the list of municipal subsidies. As for the CCAS “already bloodless”, “with a drop of 165,000 euros against 300,000 euros, you will empty it,” he is alarmed.
Towards procedure at the administrative court
Faced with the confessions of the municipality, the opposition finally reminds its elected officials that they cannot do anything with associative aid. “By individualizing subsidies, we create rights for associations that could bear the FET and request damages,” he warns in reference to aid, for some not entirely paid last year.
Contacted by telephone this Thursday, Michel Lebrun of the judo club reiterates his determination to bring the case before the administrative court, believing “that the arguments of the municipality will facilitate his approach” he who considers that his club has been discriminated against by the city. Before this consulting meeting, the creator of the Jazz Festival, Philippe Laredo, also announced that he wanted to carry out an approach on his side.
Patrick Deguise also closed the subsidy file by denouncing aid figures to associations “not consistent with those of the budget”, a budget also examined this same evening. Another big subject to which we will come back soon.
