Michel Barnier (new window)will deliver his general policy statement (new window) at the National Assembly on Tuesday October 1. His government (new window) will present its draft budget 2025 the following week. In the meantime, on Friday September 27, the new Prime Minister gave Journal de Saône-et-Loire (JSL) (new window) his first interview with the print media. The head of government promises to protect ‘from any tax increase’ those ‘who work, who produce’, and evokes an ‘exceptional and temporary’ contribution from‘those who can contribute’ to the effort to redress public finances (new window).
‘On the question of taxation, I said that I would protect from any tax increase those who are on the ground, who work, who produce. We’re going to appeal, exceptionally and temporarily, to those who can contribute to this effort’, the Prime Minister tells the JSL, on the eve of a trip to the department, to the national congress of the French fire department in Mâcon.
‘Make sure we’re fair’
‘France’s situation is very serious in budgetary and financial terms. My responsibility as Prime Minister, and that of the government, is to face up to it and take measures, not against this or that category, but by making sure to be fair’, he insists in this interview.
‘I said when I arrived on the steps of Matignon that everyone was going to have to roll up their sleeves, because the situation of this 3100 billion debt, a deficit today of over 6%, is a situation that concerns everyone, every family. So the effort must be fair, balanced and concerted’, adds Michel Barnier .
The phone call to Marine Le Pen
Inquired further about his phone call on Tuesday September 24 to Marine Le Pen and his reframing of Economy Minister Antoine Armand , sparking criticism, notably within the presidential party , the Prime Minister pointed out that the member of the Rassemblement national ‘is president of a group that is very important in the National Assembly and I wanted to confirm to her, as I could have done to others, that the rule is that the groups represented in the Assembly would be respected and listened to’.
‘This applies to all political groups from the right to the left, who all represent citizens. Ministers will receive elected representatives from LFI or Rassemblement National if they wish to be received’, Michel Barnier added in this interview. Asked further whether he placed‘LFI and RN in the republican arc’, the head of government replied that ‘these are political parties that are elected from the Republic, that are elected to the National Assembly. Period final’.