The 2023 public deficit will be “significantly” beyond the target of 4.9%, warns Bruno Le Maire

The 10 billion euro savings plan announced in February is in this sense “not a slap in the face, but an emergency brake”, insisted the Minister of the Economy.

The public deficit measured in 2023 will be “significantly beyond” of the 4.9% objective set by the government, warned the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, in a daily interview The worldWednesday March 6. He insisted on wanting to reduce public spending, describing the recent announcement of 10 billion in budget cuts in 2024 as “emergency brake”and not “plane blow”.

These cuts, which target in particular the ecological transition, work or education, should allow the government to respect its objective of reducing the public deficit to 4.4% of gross domestic product in 2024, all under the watchful eye of the agencies. rating. “At some point, we simply have to cool the machine, because growth is suffering the consequences of the new geopolitical environment and tax revenues are decreasing. When we earn less, we spend less”according to the minister.

He reiterated that this reduction in spending was only a first step, before a possible “amended finance bill in the summer, if necessary”then the need to find at least 12 billion euros in additional savings in 2025.

Lowering the growth forecast

The government had to lower its growth forecast to 1% for 2024, compared to 1.4% in the initial budget, a figure significantly higher than the consensus of economic forecasters and which the High Council of Public Finances had judged “pupil” upon its unveiling in September.

The savings plan was enacted by decree rather than via an amended finance bill, which would have obliged the government to submit these ten billion cuts to Parliament for approval, a perilous exercise at a time when the presidential camp only has a relative majority in the National Assembly.