Sacha Houlié, a deputy from the Vienne and a member of the Place publique group, accused Ségolène Royal of "ruining the Poitou-Charentes Region" during her presidency from 2004 to 2014. In December 2016, the Regional Audit Chamber (CRC) confirmed that the region had unpaid debts of 111 million euros and 172 million euros in loans, 46 of which were classified as toxic. Experts noted that the region's financial decline was significantly faster than the average for other regions, though they did not use the term "ruined region." Ségolène Royal, who led Poitou-Charentes from 2004 to 2014, was succeeded by Jean-François Macaire (PS) until December 2015. In January 2016, Poitou-Charentes merged with Aquitaine and Limousin to form the new region Nouvelle-Aquitaine, presided over by Alain Rousset (PS). At that time, the controversy over the financial record of Ségolène Royal began, with the president of the new region announcing the discovery of millions of euros in unpaid debts and a "financial drift" inherited from the previous administration. Jean-François Macaire, the vice-president in charge of finances for Nouvelle-Aquitaine, left his position barely two months after taking office. A financial audit by Ernst & Young, ordered by the region's president, was presented in April 2016. It reported a strongly deteriorated financial situation, including nearly zero savings, under-budgeted expenses, payment delays, and 132 million euros in unpaid debts. However, this was not a judgment from the Court of Auditors. Ségolène Royal contested these findings, stating she was "scandalized" by the "defamatory and negative" statements made about her former region. She claimed the figures were "false" and attributed the issues to a computer problem related to the software imposed by Aquitaine. She argued that the criticism was a strategy to "better appear as the savior that everyone was waiting for" to justify tax increases or the renunciation of certain actions she had found useful and important. Dominique Breillat, an emeritus professor of Public Law at the University of Poitiers, explained that the community had refused to raise the regional share of the internal consumption tax on energy products (TICPE), a loss estimated at 46 million euros per year. He noted that while Ségolène Royal emphasized investments in environmental matters, these must be adapted to financial means, and budgetary rules must be followed. The CRC confirmed in December 2016 that the region had unpaid debts of 111 million euros and 172 million euros in loans, of which 46 were estimated to be toxic. The CRC report also confirmed a strong degradation of the budgetary indicators of the former Poitou-Charentes. The CRC did not comment on the report, stating it was an extremely precise report that could not be commented on 10 years later. Dominique Breillat explained that the management style under Ségolène Royal was characterized by under-budgeting and the deferral of expenses from one budgetary year to the next. He noted that no such criticism had been made against her predecessors, Jean-Pierre Raffarin and Élisabeth Morin. The debt repayment capacity of Poitou-Charentes reached 18.9 years as of December 31, 2015, compared to 8 years for the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region and 2.6 years for Aquitaine. The CRC report did not use the term "ruin the region," as a territorial community cannot be put into bankruptcy like a private company. Patrice Raymond, a professor at the University Bourgogne Europe, confirmed that Poitou-Charentes experienced a much faster deterioration than the average of the regions. He warned about the "at least concerning" situation of the vast majority of local authorities and called for urgent establishment of shared, negotiated budgetary and financial strategies.