Emmanuel Macron's desire to reduce social spending was not long in being implemented.
From the summer of 2017, a few weeks after his election, the President of the Republic made the choice of budget cuts targeting the most precarious: reduction of 5 euros in personalized housing assistance (APL) and massive reduction in assisted contracts.
Unpopular measures but which respond to a budgetary coherence to which Emmanuel Macron is particularly attached at the start of his five-year term: to increase the purchasing power of the French and favor companies by lowering taxes and social security contributions, while respecting the European budgetary rules – these require reducing the public deficit, which was 3.4% of GDP in 2016, below 3% – it is essential, according to the Head of State, to cut social spending .
>> To read: Emmanuel Macron, the results (2/4): in the economy, a drip trickle
These decisions are accompanied by the justifications of the most audible members of the government, namely Prime Minister Édouard Philippe, Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire and Minister of Public Accounts Gérald Darmanin, all from the right.
So much so that Emmanuel Macron's first savings measures, combined with the abolition of wealth tax (ISF) or the introduction of a flat tax of 30% on capital income (the " flat tax"), quickly earned the head of state the nickname "president of the rich".
A label that sticks all the more to his skin that Emmanuel Macron assumes that he wants to deeply review the French social model.
"We put crazy dough into social minima, people are still poor. We don't get out of it. People who are born poor remain poor. Those who fall poor remain poor. (…) People have to be made responsible" , he says in a video, published on June 12, 2018, showing him addressing his advisers on the eve of his speech at the congress of the Mutualité française.
President ?
Always demanding.
Not yet satisfied with the speech he will deliver tomorrow at the Mutuality congress, he therefore gives us the brief!
At work !
pic.twitter.com/2mjy1JmOVv
— Sibeth Ndiaye (@SibethNdiaye) June 12, 2018
Three months later, a "poverty plan" of 8.5 billion euros over four years is presented.
This is supposed to review the system of French aid from top to bottom in order to "eradicate extreme poverty" in one generation.
It provides for free breakfasts in certain schools, the canteen at 1 euro in certain municipalities, places in crèches for children from disadvantaged families, a public integration service and a universal activity income (RUA) merging several social minima.
The objectives are ambitious, but will gradually be neglected.
On the other hand, cutting spending in other sectors is a priority.
"There is no magic money"
Emmanuel Macron's program provides for 25 billion euros in savings, including 15 billion in health.
As a result, the public hospital budget does not meet needs, in particular due to the drop in hospital prices – which form the basis for calculating the allocated resources – these having fallen by 7% between 2008 and 2018. , according to the magazine Economic Alternatives.
This situation forces healthcare personnel to work more and more in just-in-time conditions.
To a caregiver who asked him, in April 2018, for more resources, Emmanuel Macron replied that "there is no magic money".
For the President of the Republic, the logic of respecting France's budgetary commitments vis-à-vis Brussels prevails.
And the results are there: France's public deficit rose to 2.8% of GDP in 2017 then 2.
The increase in the carbon tax on fuels a few months later and the birth of the Yellow Vests social movement in November 2018, however, disrupted his plans.
At first not taken seriously by the executive, the demonstrations on the roundabouts became more radical and, in a few weeks, forced Emmanuel Macron to deviate from the planned trajectory.
To calm the revolt, the Head of State proposed during the first months of 2019 a Great National Debate to collect the grievances of the French.
It is also taking far-reaching measures in favor of purchasing power, such as the reduction of 5 billion euros in income tax, the increase in the activity bonus of 100 euros at the level of the Smic or the revaluation of the minimum old age.
As for the increase in the carbon tax, it is simply cancelled.
In total, 17 billion euros are added to the public accounts.
With the crisis over, the government resumed its reforms aimed at saving money, even if it meant attacking the unions even more.
The situation is exacerbated in hospitals and leads to a major mobilization of caregivers throughout 2019. The government ends up releasing in November 2019 an envelope of 1.5 billion euros over three years, bonuses for caregivers and nurses, as well as the assumption of a third of the debt of hospitals.
Despite this "emergency plan", the nursing staff believe that the account is still not there.
More than 1,000 hospital doctors, including 600 department heads, resigned from their administrative functions in January 2020 in protest.
The unemployment insurance reform, adopted in 2019, tightens the conditions of access and lowers the amount of benefits.
The alternation between short contracts and periods of inactivity will be penalised.
And while Emmanuel Macron had promised during his campaign to allow independents and resigners to be compensated, the conditions required make the device very restrictive.
Opening the system to too many people would have led to excessive expenditure, judges the government, especially since candidate Macron's objective was to save 10 billion euros on unemployment insurance .
>> To read: Strike against pension reform: the reasons for the mobilization
Finally, the pension reform, which the government is tackling at the end of 2019, also aims to save money thanks to a universal points system indexed to inflation and the establishment of a pivotal retirement age. retired at age 64.
Hundreds of thousands of people demonstrate in the streets against the bill for long weeks, at the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020, so that the mobilization against the pension reform becomes the longest social conflict in the history of the SNCF and of the RATP – the special regimes of their agents intended to disappear, according to the text of the law.
The reform was finally adopted without a vote, on February 29, 2020, thanks to article 49-3 of the Constitution.
"Whatever it Takes"
But after the Yellow Vests, another unexpected event disrupts Emmanuel Macron's budgetary ambitions.
The Covid-19 pandemic that appeared in China at the end of 2019 affected Europe and France at the start of 2020. The health and economic crisis it caused upset the end of the five-year term.
In March, the Head of State suspended the pension reform and postponed the full application of the unemployment insurance reform.
Above all, it establishes the "whatever the cost" to help the public hospital, save businesses, jobs and revive economic activity, which is suffering an 8% recession, unprecedented since the Second World War.
26:52
The "magic money" denied to caregivers and many other sectors is now flowing.
The health budget increases by 9.4% in 2020 and 7.4% in 2021, while the "Ségur de la Santé", organized in the summer of 2020, leads to a 9 billion euro increase in salaries of nursing staff.
In total, the emergency measures taken in 2020 and 2021 cost 133.5 billion euros, according to the Treasury.
The deficit widens to 9.2% of GDP and the public debt explodes to more than 115% in 2020. The budgetary orthodoxy of the start of the five-year term then seems a long way off.
>> To read: Public hospital: caregivers denounce "a discrepancy between words and actions" by Emmanuel Macron
The imminence of the presidential election of 2022, however, pushes Emmanuel Macron to give pledges of seriousness to his right-wing electorate.
The unemployment insurance reform comes into full effect in the fall of 2021. And a little music on the duties of citizens settles in the last months of the five-year term.
"We want to continue redefining our social contract, with duties that come before rights, from respect for authority to social benefits," said government spokesman Gabriel Attal on January 29 in a statement. interview with the Parisian.
A philosophy confirmed on March 17, during the presentation of the program of the president-candidate Emmanuel Macron: the latter intends, in the event of re-election, to submit the payment of the active solidarity income (RSA) to "the obligation to devote 15 to 20 hours per week for an activity leading to professional integration, either training in integration or employment".
As for pensions, the reform he is considering will raise the legal retirement age from 62 to 65.
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