The Ministry of Finance at the Pont de Bercy in Paris, June 5, 2023 (AFP/Archives/-)
Emmanuel Macron held meetings on Wednesday evening at the Elysée on the expected slippage of the public deficit, which threatens France’s credibility on the markets and fuels a trial of budgetary “incompetence” initiated by the oppositions.
INSEE will deliver its verdict on March 26, but the figures are not good and the government knows it: the 2023 public deficit will be “significantly” higher than the 4.9% of GDP forecast, warned Bruno Le Maire. The objective of a deficit reduced to 4.4% this year appears out of reach.
According to the newspaper Les Echos, the government now fears a public deficit which would reach 5.6% of GDP for 2023. Le Figaro cites a source according to which it would reach 5.5% with a margin of error of 0.3 point.
This shift in accounts was added to the agenda of Emmanuel Macron, who received his Minister of the Economy at the end of the day, as well as those in charge of local authorities and social affairs, Christophe Béchu and Catherine Vautrin. The opportunity to put certain avenues already put forward by the executive back on the table, in particular to curb unemployment insurance and health spending.
The president also invited to dinner on Wednesday the leaders of the parties and parliamentary groups that make up his majority, to try to agree on the violins while dissonances are being heard. Their discussions continued late Wednesday evening.
A month after announcing 10 billion euros in savings, Bruno Le Maire once again put his foot in the problem on Sunday, proposing to “replace the welfare state with the protective state”, because “free everything, for everyone, all the time” is, according to him, “untenable”.
Initiative which annoyed the head of state: “He should talk about it to the one who has been Minister of the Economy for seven years,” mocked Emmanuel Macron, according to Le Canard chainé. Comments confirmed to AFP by someone familiar with the Palace.
Some MPs are calling for increasing taxes on the “ultra-rich” or large businesses, including the head of the MoDem group Jean-Paul Mattei.
– “Historical results” –
But there is no question of touching the tax lever, recalled Gabriel Attal on Wednesday. “We prefer to increase the pressure on evaders rather than increase taxes on the French,” declared the Prime Minister while presenting the “historic results” of the tax authorities, which recovered more than 15 billion euros of tax fraud last year. last year.
But for the oppositions, the account is not there.
“We have never had such appalling figures” in terms of public deficit, said on France Inter the president of the National Rally deputies, Marine Le Pen, castigating the “pitiful results” and “the incompetence of this government in the financial field.
Same accusations from the left of the deputy La France insoumise Adrien Quatennens: “These people are poor economists” who “have increased the deficit and the debt to always give gifts to the same people” and “do not have to give lessons to the French”, he castigated on CNews and Europe 1.
The president of the Republican party, Eric Ciotti, for his part denounced the “dramatic situation” of French public finances, assuring that the country “is taking the same path as Greece”, whose economy collapsed at the start of the 2010s.
“Highlights in the media are good. But being consistent in the debates in the National Assembly is perhaps better,” replied government spokesperson Prisca Thevenot at the end. of the council of ministers, accusing LR of multiplying “proposals” which “go in the direction of increasing state spending”.
Will the executive, which planned to present an amending budget “in the summer”, that is to say after the European elections of June 9, have to review its timetable at the risk of a 49.3 and censorship?
At the very least, it will be necessary to give guarantees before the ax of the rating agencies: Fitch and Moody’s on April 26, and especially S&P on May 31, a week before the election.
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© 2024 AFP
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