Mayors demand swine flu refund

TWENTY LOCAL MAYORS WRITE TO GOVERNMENT ASKING FOR THE MONEY BACK THAT THEY SPENT ON SWINE FLU PREVENTION CAMPAIGN ABOUT 20 towns and cities around France have joined forces to put pressure

on the government to pay back the money they spent on tackling the swine flu outbreak. According to the local government body the _Association des Maires de Grandes Villes de France_, local

councils contributed about €4m to the cost of the prevention campaign, such as hiring temporary staff and paying overtime. Some money has started trickling through, but the group of mayors

have now written to the government demanding that their costs be refunded in full. Paris wants back the €1.4m it spent on the vaccination and public information campaign. The bill in

Marseille was in the region of €550,000. The other towns that are asking for a refund are Aix-en-Provence, Bordeaux, Brest, Caen, Lyon, Nantes, Perpignan, Tours, Besançon, Clermont-Ferrand,

Dijon, Metz, Montpellier, Montreuil, Rennes, Roubaix, Strasbourg, Tourcoing and Villeurbanne. Last month it emerged that the government spent more than €1bn preparing for the swine flu

outbreak, including buying vaccines, hiring medical workers and municipal buildings, buying masks and sending out vaccination vouchers. The official auditor - the _Cour des Comptes_ - and

two parliamentary committees have launched separate investigations into the size of the bill after only 7% of the French population agreed to be vaccinated.