François Bayrou is due to speak this Tuesday, April 15 on the occasion of a conference on public finances. He wants to prepare the French for additional efforts in 2026.
François Bayrou is preparing to paint a portrait of a France “under budgetary alert”. This Tuesday, April 15, the Prime Minister must address parliamentarians, social security organizations or local communities during a conference on public finances, which he wants to expose fragility.
Exchanges are planned behind closed doors, then the Prime Minister should speak publicly during a press conference. Amélie de Montchalin and Eric Lombard, respectively Ministers of Public Accounts and Economy, will be present. The latter paved the way on Sunday, announcing that “an additional 40 billion euros” will be necessary in 2026 to reach the target of public deficit of 4.6% of GDP.
“Forty billion is the gap compared to the natural budget trajectory,” he said on Monday. Another way of saying it is that we will slightly lower the public expenditure, very slightly, compared to its 2025 level ”.
This Tuesday conference is intended to be an inventory of debt and deficit in France, among the highest in Europe. If the French economy is shaken by internal political instability and by the trade conflict launched by the United States, the state of public finances is above all due to the “cumulative deficits” of the country, according to Eric Lombard.
An analysis shared by François Bayrou who declared, on the sidelines of a trip on Friday: “France has trained pathologies, (…) or in any case imbalances for decades. Come on, let’s say for thirty years. They are all the more difficult to deal with since we have entered into times of crisis. And we will however expose them to the French to share with them (…) all the risks ”inherent in making the next budget.
No announcements will be made a priori this Tuesday, apart from the creation of working groups to identify the savings to be achieved. With the Parisian, the Prime Minister said they planned after the conference a period of “three months, three and a half months, to develop, to advance towards decisions”. The objective will then be to initiate the dialogue “with all stakeholders” in order to bring out “a consensus”, according to Eric Lombard.
-A reason of censorship
The discussions promise to be complicated, however, since the prospect of an additional 40 billion euros for the 2026 budget has already reacted the oppositions. On Monday, those responsible for rebellious France (LFI) and the National Rally (RN) warned that it could even be a reason for censorship of the government.
“If the project is to ask the French to tighten their belts without the state going on the path of the economies in terms of immigration, the lifestyle of the state, the communities, we will employ ourselves to censor it,” said Sébastien Chenu on Europe 1/CNEWS.
Manuel Bompard, he said he was ready “to deposit a new censorship motion”, provided he has the guarantee “that at least the left -wing deputies vote it”. Jean-Luc Mélenchon finally indignant that “the people of France be treated like Greece in 2010”, when it was forced to a severe cure of austerity.
“A communication sequence”
More broadly, the left fears a “recessive impact” of these new economies on growth already weakened by uncertainties linked to the protectionist policy of the United States. She also protests that the government always refuses, in this context, to consider tax increases for the richest.
Oppositions are not the only ones to have made their dissatisfaction heard since the Association of Mayors of France (AMF) announced this Monday that it would not participate in the conference on public finances organized by François Bayrou.
In a press release, she explained that “no detailed agenda or working document has been provided to the organizations summoned” to the event, which makes her fear that this meeting is only intended to “expose the analyzes of the Ministry of Economy and Finance” and to “reproduce a method that excludes any consultation or negotiation with communities”.
Denouncing “a communication sequence”, the AMF remains, according to its press release, “available to the government for a real constructive and sustainable approach, with a work meeting prepared upstream”.
