The government is bringing together parliamentarians from the majority and the opposition on Thursday afternoon in Bercy to try to find savings after France’s deficit soars to 5.5% of GDP in 2023, but some oppositions have has already announced to boycott the meeting.
On Wednesday evening, Prime Minister Gabriel Attal reaffirmed on TF1 his government’s course: to reduce the deficit below 3% in 2027, an effort estimated at 50 billion euros by the Court of Auditors.
To do this, the Minister of Economy and Finance Bruno Le Maire will meet parliamentarians, elected officials and social partners on Thursday and make proposals for the 2025 budget, which will be presented at the end of June, indicated the Prime Minister.
The executive warned at the beginning of March that it would be necessary to save at least 20 billion euros in 2025. The meeting at the Minister of Economy and Finance should also make it possible to reflect on the additional savings necessary according to Bruno Le Maire from 2024, in addition of 10 billion euros in cuts already made in February.
The executive is under double pressure from the rating agencies, which should update the French credit rating in the spring, and from political oppositions. On Wednesday, the Moody’s agency considered it unlikely that the government would achieve its deficit target of 4.4% of GDP in 2024 and less than 3% in 2027.
It is to find realistic, documented and significant savings that Bruno Le Maire and his colleagues Thomas Cazenave (Minister Delegate for Public Accounts), Catherine Vautrin (Labour) and Frdric Valletoux (Health) invited deputies and senators to Bercy on Thursday.
Among the guests are the presidents and general rapporteurs of the Finance and Social Affairs committees of the two houses of Parliament. In addition, all parliamentary groups were invited, Bercy indicated.
But several groups declined the invitation, starting with the LR group. The only exception: Senator Jean-Franois Husson, who will be present but in his capacity as general rapporteur of the Finance Committee. I’m not going there to receive lessons, he has already warned.
The head of deputies Liot Bertand Pancher also indicated that he was boycotting the meeting, in the absence of a commitment from the executive to present an amended budget to Parliament, denouncing a sham of consultation.
Rather than a meeting in the mysteries of Bercy, we are asking for a amending finance law as quickly as possible so that Parliament is not sidelined from the budgetary debate, the communist senators and deputies of the Democratic Party also argued in a press release. GDR-Nupes group, a government which decides alone must take responsibility alone.
They explain that they disagree with the avenues mentioned by the executive, which chooses to undermine the social protection model rather than making tax justice work through taxation of superprofits. We will not participate in this charade, they affirmed.
A second Bercy meeting has been announced for April 9, in order to look, with associations of local elected officials, for potential savings within local authorities.