Bruno Le Maire claims to be “on schedule to submit the 2025 budget to Parliament on October 1st”

While waiting for the presentation of a new full-fledged government, the outgoing government is managing current affairs. Among the urgent and thorny issues, the 2025 budget is at the top of the pile. Bruno Le Maire, the outgoing Minister of the Economy, has affirmed that he is there, without needing to push back the deadline of October 1st. “We are on schedule to submit the 2025 budget to Parliament on October 1st”he said on Monday, September 9, while being questioned by the National Assembly’s finance committee on the country’s budgetary situation.

The draft finance bill should normally be sent to parliamentarians “no later than the first Tuesday in October of the year preceding the year in which the budget is implemented”this year on October 1, 2024. Then, the National Assembly and the Senate must debate and adopt the law, which must be promulgated on the following January 1. The document is a substantial text (which extends over 416 pages for the 2024 version), which requires a lot of work at Bercy and which concerns all ministries.

Bruno Le Maire judged that France could meet its objective of a public deficit of 5.1% of GDP in 2024 and 3% in 2027, while the budgetary trajectory is threatened with slippage. “We can and must maintain our 3% in 2027. It is only a question of political choices”added the minister regarding this maximum threshold set by European budgetary rules.