Baptiste Morin / Photo credit: XOSE BOUZAS / HANS LUCAS / HANS LUCAS VIA AFP 6:50 a.m., March 25, 2024

A month ago, Bruno Le Maire announced the freezing of 10 billion euros of ministerial credits, to deal with the deterioration of public finances. The foretaste of a rigorous cure which will inevitably involve other drastic cuts in public spending because the public deficit promises to be larger than expected. And yet, the government continues to take out the checkbook.

Whatever it takes is over, time for rigorous management of public spending. Constrained by deficit forecasts for 2023 - INSEE must communicate the official figure on Tuesday - which are much more alarming than what it had anticipated, the government must make savings. New reform of Unemployment Insurance, cuts to health spending or apprenticeships... all avenues are on the table except one: raising taxes is out of the question, Bruno reiterated The Mayor last Friday. 

The problem is that the government's frantic search for savings is constantly contradicted by new spending. Almost in spite of himself, the executive continues to take out the checkbook at the slightest spark. With farmers: part of the 450 million euros in aid was released after the budget cuts. But also for hospitals in difficulty, provided with an additional 500 million euros. The Olympic Games bonuses for civil servants, which will amount to 1,900 euros, will also cost several hundred million euros. In a different register, Emmanuel Macron also announced 3 billion euros in aid to Ukraine.

“Every new expense is considered due”

France is addicted to spending, concludes Lisa Thomas D'Arbois, economist at the Montaigne Institute. "We have the feeling that as soon as we create an expense, it immediately becomes due. For citizens, for businesses. Emmanuel Macron made a promise not to increase taxes and therefore you have anchored a belief according to which you can continue to spend against the energy crisis, in support of Ukraine, against inflation... All this with unchanged fiscal measures and with an inability to be able to call into question these expenditures since they shift into the order of what is owed ", she explains.

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And yet, we must change course. The government could go through an amending finance bill for 2024. And for next year, it has set the objective of at least 20 billion euros in savings.