Deficit: “We will continue on this path of rigor”, assures Gabriel Attal

Europe 1 with AFP // Photo credits: ALAIN JOCARD / AFP 4:42 p.m., March 26, 2024

“We will continue on this path of rigor” to fill the budget deficit, which widened to 5.5% of GDP in 2023, assured Gabriel Attal on Tuesday before the National Assembly. “We will continue on this path of rigor and responsibility always with a common thread (...) that of work” because “the more French people we have working, the more possibilities we will have to balance our finances”, declared the Prime Minister, citing “the reform of unemployment insurance”, during the government questions session. 

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Government seminar

Gabriel Attal is due to convene a government seminar on this theme of work on Wednesday morning in Matignon before being questioned by TF1 on the 8 p.m. news. He was responding to the leader of Les Républicains deputies Olivier Marleix who described the situation of public finances as “serious”. “The reality is that there has been an economic slowdown, and in the face of that, we obviously need very great rigor in the choices we make. This is what my government did by issuing a decree cancellation of 10 billion euros of credits", argued the head of government.

“We assumed taking these measures in the face of an economic slowdown and lower revenues,” he added, blaming the Covid epidemic “which hit the whole world and which obviously had a impact on our finances. France's public deficit reached 5.5% of GDP in 2023, INSEE revealed on Tuesday, i.e. 15.8 billion euros more than the government had planned, complicating the debt reduction objective however. reaffirmed Tuesday by the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire. “Debt is a sword of Damocles over our country and the sovereignty of a country is obviously its ability to get out of debt,” said Gabriel Attal.