Paris (AFP)

For its last five-year budget, and after fiscal years 2020 and 2021 heckled by the health crisis, the government defends for 2022 the return to greater normality, even if the level of public spending would be a little higher than expected.

The 2022 finance bill, under preparation "will reflect the end of the health crisis, the normalization of the fiscal year and the pursuit of government action since the start of the five-year term," says the Ministry of Economy in the preparatory report for the budget orientation debate, recently posted online.

But despite the announced end of "whatever the cost", this 2022 budget will be marked by a still high level of public spending.

It will grow in volume by 1.5%, excluding stimulus and emergency spending, when the government was counting on an increase of 1.1%, in its stability program transmitted to Brussels in April.

It is "a cautious forecast on the evolution of expenditure in all public administrations, pending arbitration on State expenditure which has not yet been made," Bercy said to the 'AFP.

And "it remains compatible with the multi-year trajectory" of an average increase in expenditure of 0.7% per year between 2022 and 2027 (excluding emergency and stimulus measures), and "does not call into question the gradual exit from the whatever the cost, ”adds the ministry.

The 2022 budget must in particular "allow the ministries to finance priorities as we defined them at the start of the five-year term," Minister of Public Accounts Olivier Dussopt said Thursday on Sud radio.

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Among them, "the sharp increase in the means of sovereign public policies and the priority given to education", details the preparatory report.

On the first, the government is bound by the programming laws already passed, while on education, the Minister of Education Jean-Michel Blanquer announced the release of an envelope of 700 million euros in 2022 for salary increases.

On the economic trajectory envisaged for 2021 and 2022, the government generally confirms its forecasts, with economic growth "of at least 5%" this year, and 4% next year.

The debt forecast, at 115.7% of GDP in 2022, is slightly revised downwards compared to the last official forecast in April (116.3%).

That of the public deficit remains unchanged at 5.3%, after 9.4% expected this year.

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