Gabriel Attal and the semantics of “rigor”

France’s public deficit finally reached 5.5% of GDP in 2023, according to figures released by INSEE on Tuesday. Faced with this budgetary slippage, the Prime Minister assures that he wants to “continue on the path of rigor”. A term that is not trivial.

Questioned Tuesday March 26 at the National Assembly on the scale of public deficits, Gabriel Attal ended up letting go of the word “rigor. After the announcement of the severe slippage in public accounts in 2023, the Prime Minister was subjected to a barrage of questions from the opposition. And so he promised to “continue on this path of rigor and responsibility” For “balance our finances.” For now, this so-called “restrictive way” rather emptied the state coffers. But the use of this politically loaded term is not innocent. Until then, the Minister of Economy and Finance, Bruno Le Maire, preferred for example to claim the “serious budgetary”.

This word “rigor” sounds like an admission of economic failure. It announces the time of difficult decisions for the French and refers, in particular, to “turning point of rigor” initiated by Pierre Mauroy in March 1983, Gabriel Attal was not even born. At the time, after two years of expensive reforms, the socialists in power had had to drastically cut public spending, social spending and financing of local authorities, and increasing taxes, to avoid leaving the road. These painful choices broke with the commitments of candidate François Mitterrand in 1981 but they preserved France’s place in Europe. A change in policy that the left did not has never fully assumed, Lionel Jospin evoking at the time a simple “parenthesis”. Some 12 years later, on October 26, 1995, again, Jacques Chirac, recently elected, had taken the same turn by burying his promises on the “social divide” to make deficit reduction an absolute priority.

Finding solutions without raising taxes

The government is undoubtedly condemned to follow the same path. “To let our finances drift would be irresponsible”, repeats Bruno Le Maire. So, the words are not the same, nor are the tools. Bercy continues to rule out any tax increase, and Gabriel Attal dresses up the bad news, the announced cuts in social spending, in the name of “priority to work”. But the facts are there. In September 2007, François Fillon, new Prime Minister, also had an unfortunate sentence: “I am at the head of a state which is in a situation of bankruptcy”, he said. At the time, the debt was “only” 1200 billion and the deficit was 2.7% of GDP. Nearly 17 years later, France exceeds 3,000 billion in debt and a 5.5% deficit.