The French government has launched the first warning: after it, it will also have to adjust those of 2026. The Minister of Economy and Finance, Éric Lombard, announced this Sunday a “considerable effort” in the accounts they are preparing, which will result in at least 40,000 million euros of savings, necessary to maintain the objectives to reduce the deficit. It is currently 5.4%, one of the highest in the European Union, and the challenge is to soften it up to 4.6% of GDP.
France is in a “state of”, according to Lombard in the French chain BFM. He advanced that, although it is still early to give the details, the budget adjustment will surely be done through the cut in public spending and also with supplementary income linked to growth. Discard at the moment fiscally penalize the French.
“We know that it is a difficult equation, but both the prime minister and the president have committed themselves not to raise taxes,” supported the government spokeswoman Sophie Primas, who recalled that lowering the excessive deficit “is a matter of credibility” of the country and that the current objective will not be reviewed. Premiums dropped that the figure could even reach 50,000 million.
They add up to the other 50,000 cuts that already contemplated the 2025 accounts, the most austere France has had in decades. They were the ones that cost the former prime minister, after censorship in Parliament last December. Finally, they were approved two months ago, thanks to a special law that the opposition ended up voting so as not to create even more instability in the country.
Since then the French government, which has no majority in the Assembly, has been making numbers, aware that another austerity cure can lead to a new motion of censure and make it fall. The Prime Minister, François Bayrou, has called on Tuesday a conference on public finances, to “sensitize the French about budgetary pathologies” of the country.
In addition to the ministers of the economic area, the deputies and senators of the finance commissions and representatives of the local communities, organizations that could be the first to suffer the cuts will participate. The objective is to detect which savings will be less painful for the French and with limited impact on growth.
The reality is that the French context degrades and now the uncertainties linked to the trade war opened by the US president, Donald Trump, could worsen the situation. The growth forecast has already been reviewed down, 0.9% to 0.7% this year. In addition, the 2026 budget must also absorb part of the rearme effort. In five years France aspires to, up to 100,000 million in 2030.
Lombard has advanced that cuts will focus on public spending, which represents 57% of GDP. “With this level of state expense, at the same time, the figure of services” can be reduced “without entering into an” austerity policy, “said the minister, aware that the French are very sensitive to that their generous social protection system weakens.
Nor is it planned to raise taxes to the middle classes, one of the president’s red lines, Emmanuel Macron, since he reached the Elysee in 2017. The 2025 accounts were the first that contemplated an extra effort only for the highest income. It was approved, with the promise that it was temporary, until reducing the deficit.
The French Economy Minister defends that this device has to stay until the objectives are achieved, and insists that it will only affect “tens of thousands of taxpayers.” Another of the tracks is to suppress the fiscal advantage of which pensioners benefit.
The Government will present on Wednesday in the Council of Ministers its structural budget plan in the medium term, which in turn will send to the European Commission. This text marks the road map for the next few years. At the moment, the opposition parties, both the left and the extreme right, have threatened to present a new motion of censure in Parliament if the Executive tries to carry out new austerity budgets.
