“France has been spending more than it earns for 50 years,” says Gabriel Attal, who claims to have made savings

“France has been spending more than it earns for fifty years”deplores Monday October 14 on France Inter Gabriel Attal, president of the Ensemble group in the National Assembly and former Prime Minister, while the budgetary slippage is expected at 6.1% of GDP this year. Asked about his possible responsibility in this matter, the former tenant of Matignon replied that he had “save money” when he was head of government.

The leader of the presidential camp deputies maintains that “the first thing [qu’il a] faced with the budgetary state of our country, is to issue a decree to cancel 10 billion euros of budgetary appropriations during the year.” “I asked all the ministries to tighten their belts” , he adds. The former Prime Minister thus prides himself on having “took steps to identify or achieve 40 billion euros in savings over the eight months” in Matignon. He even wonders if there has ever been “in the past such a record of savings in such a short time”. The EPR deputy for Hauts-de-Seine calls for “pursue” efforts and thus brings its “support” to the new Prime Minister Michel Barnier “in its objective of restoring the accounts”.

Gabriel Attal finally returned to the desire of Insoumis MP Éric Coquerel to transform the Finance Committee that he chairs into a committee of inquiry into budgetary slippage. The former Prime Minister says he finds “always positive when Parliament does its evaluation work.” “Hearings of ministers have already taken place, if the Finance Committee wants to do more, it will do more”he adds.

The president of the Ensemble pour la République group in the National Assembly recalls that from 2017 and the coming to power of Emmanuel Macron, “reforms have been undertaken to reduce the deficit”. He believes that some “expenses were totally justified”evoking in particular “whatever it costs in the face of Covid” or even “the tariff shield” on energy. But Gabriel Attal also recognizes that “probably expenses were less priority”, without specifying which ones. “It’s important to make this assessment”he says, before adding that the issue “today is about restoring the accounts.”