Edouard Philippe regrets “that we are not reforming much”

“We must begin to cure ourselves of the temptation to resolve everything with checks worth several hundred million euros, or even billions of euros, as soon as a problem arises,” pointed out the former Prime Minister on Monday, in a interview with “L’Opinion”.

He calls for considering debt as a “political obsession”. In an interview with Opinion, Monday February 26, former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe regretted that France “don’t reform much”worrying about the state of public finances.

“In 2017, the President of the Republic said a lot, and I agreed, that, even if it meant spending, we had to reform massively. Today, the problem is that we are not reforming much “, singled out the mayor of Le Havre (Seine-Maritime) and boss of the Horizons party. The government has just lowered the growth forecast for 2024 and announced a plan of 10 billion euros in savings.

“We must begin to cure ourselves of the temptation to resolve everything with checks worth several hundred million euros, or even billions of euros, as soon as a problem arises”continued the former head of government, who is hiding less and less his ambitions for the presidential election of 2027. Even if it means distancing himself from the executive’s speech.

Talk about budgetary “seriousness” rather than “rigor”

The Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, revealed in recent days 10 billion euros in savings to meet the objectives of reducing the deficit to 4.4% of GDP. The growth forecast for 2024, initially 1.4%, has been reduced to 1%. Public debt amounted to more than 3,000 billion euros in the 3rd quarter of 2023, according to INSEE, compared to around 2,200 billion at the end of 2017.

“The French may have the impression that, deep down, we will never have to repay the debt. This is a very dangerous idea, alert Edouard Philippe. Debt is not an accountant’s obsession. It must be a political obsession. Because when we let it slip away, we gradually lose our sovereignty.”

“Let us resume the work of transforming the State. Let us choose to invest in priorities, let us renounce useless or ineffective actions”, adds the leader of the Horizons party, who prefers to talk about “serious” budgetary rather than “rigor”.