Bruno Le Maire, a seven-year term at Bercy tarnished by the drift of public finances

After seven years at the helm of the French economy, Bruno Le Maire leaves Bercy with a record longevity and a record tarnished by the drift of France’s public finances.

Appointed on Saturday evening, his successor Antoine Armand will have the difficult task of trying to reduce considerable public debt and deficit, where the outgoing minister has failed to find a remedy.

He will be able to rely on Laurent Saint-Martin, appointed Minister of the Budget and Public Accounts, replacing Thomas Cazenave.

In a sign of the importance that the government attaches to the burning issue of the size of the deficit, Laurent Saint-Martin reports directly to the Prime Minister.

Faced with the threat of further slippage in the public deficit, the new finance minister will have to steer the budget for 2025.

Antoine Armand, July 9, 2024 in Paris (AFP/Archives/Alain JOCARD)

This is proving to be an arithmetic puzzle over the scale of the efforts to be made, between cutting spending and increasing taxes, and a political challenge over the support to be found in Parliament.

For seven years, Bruno Le Maire, 55, piloted the Bercy “cruise ship” and the French economy through crises, with massive aid, before France became a bad European student – to the point of being pinned down by Brussels for excessive deficit and seeing its rating downgraded.

He broke the longevity record at Bercy under the Fifth Republic – Valéry Giscard d’Estaing did better, albeit intermittently – but the defeat of the presidential camp in the early legislative elections this summer signalled the end of the game.

– Head right –

Heading to the right, Bruno Le Maire has deployed Emmanuel Macron’s supply-side policy and its procession of tax cuts for businesses and households.

Defending the contested reforms of pensions and unemployment insurance, he made full employment and the reindustrialization of France priorities, necessary conditions according to him for sustainable growth and an attractive country.

Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire during a debate on the orientation and programming of public finances, at the National Assembly, April 29, 2024 in Paris (AFP/Archives/Alain JOCARD)

A supporter of a less wasteful State, he nevertheless opened the purse strings wide in the face of Covid, inflation and the surge in energy prices, before initiating a shift towards budgetary orthodoxy, castigating the French culture of spending and trying as best he could to gradually move away from the “whatever it costs” approach.

To the minister’s credit, Olivier Redoulès, director of studies at Rexecode, cites “the massive reduction in production taxes” and “the creation of a narrative around industry and sovereignty.” “But he has not managed to create a political consensus, including in his camp, around the objective of consolidating public finances.”

His aspiration for budgetary virtue has not come to fruition.

France’s public accounts (AFP/Archives/Bertille LAGORCE, Sabrina BLANCHARD)

After the post-Covid recovery of the economy, growth is slowing, the public deficit is slipping (5.5% in 2023) and debt is exploding (almost 3,160 billion euros and 111% of GDP at the end of March).

“We are always responsible for our actions when we are in government,” believes the first president of the Court of Auditors, Pierre Moscovici.

Bruno Le Maire “really devoted himself to the country and he had a very successful period,” he added on France Inter. But “collectively,” despite the announced end of “whatever it takes,” “we continued to spend, spend a lot.”

– “The best possible” –

Being offered the Economy and Finance portfolio in 2017 allowed him to be politically reborn, after his bitter failure in the right-wing primary.

A shock in the hitherto smooth career of this brilliant student from the wealthy suburbs, a graduate of the École Normale Supérieure and the École Nationale d’Administration, who was Dominique de Villepin’s chief of staff at Matignon before being elected UMP deputy in 2007.

Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire leaving the Elysée Palace on June 26, 2024 in Paris (AFP/Archives/Bertrand GUAY)

A defender of economic patriotism, the former Secretary of State for European Affairs (2008-2009) and Minister of Agriculture (2009-2012) under François Fillon is campaigning in Brussels to intensify European industrial cooperation in the face of China and the United States.

On the international stage, he promotes the taxation of billionaires.

Bruno Le Maire, who was regularly said to have ambitions for Matignon or the Elysée, has decided to turn the page on politics, at least temporarily. This former literature professor, who has written around fifteen books, is returning to teaching, this time economics and geopolitics, in Lausanne (Switzerland).

© 2024 AFP

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