The French government has significantly revised downwards its growth estimate for 2024, from 1.4% to now 1%, Bruno Le Maire announced on Sunday, revealing “immediate” savings of 10 billion euros on government spending. State to meet budgetary ambitions.
This growth forecast “takes into account the new geopolitical context”, explained the Minister of the Economy on TF1, referring to the war in Ukraine, the Middle East, the “very marked economic slowdown in China” and “a recession in 2023 in Germany “.
Consequently, and due to lower tax revenues than expected, the State “will make an immediate effort of 10 billion euros in savings” in order to respect its budgetary objectives.
Five billion euros will have to be saved from the operating budget “of all ministries”, explained Bruno Le Maire, for example on energy expenditure or purchases.
MaPrimeRénov’ targeted
The government will also “reduce public development aid by almost a billion euros” and lower the MaPrimeRénov’ energy renovation aid envelope by another billion euros. “We had announced an additional envelope of 1.6 billion from 2023 to 2024” and “there will always be an increase of 600 million, but we are recovering 1 billion,” noted the minister.
A “third series of savings”, of a billion euros in total, will concern “State operators”, according to Bruno Le Maire who mentioned in particular the National Agency for Territorial Cohesion, Business France , France Competences or the National Center for Space Studies.
With its new growth forecast, the executive aligns itself with other estimates: the Banque de France expects growth “close to 0.9%”, the International Monetary Fund forecasts 1% and the OECD 0.6%. . Bercy still intends to reduce the public deficit to 4.4% of GDP in 2024, indicated Mr. Le Maire, compared to 4.9% anticipated for 2023.
“We also have the possibility” of a “revising budget in the summer depending on economic circumstances and the geopolitical situation,” the minister also noted.
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