AA / Paris / Ümit Dönmez
The French Minister of Economy and Finance, Bruno Le Maire, unveiled this Wednesday during the Council of Ministers an ambitious “simplification” plan intended to reduce administrative formalities weighing on French companies. This initiative follows the announcement by Gabriel Attal, Prime Minister, concerning the “debureaucratization” of the administration for individuals.
According to Bruno Le Maire’s declarations following the council of ministers, a business manager can devote up to eight hours a week to managing administrative documents, a burden which would represent a loss of three points of GDP (gross domestic product). ) annually for France. The minister stressed the need for a drastic reduction in “paperwork”, including a simplification of the pay slip which would be reduced from 55 to around fifteen lines.
“The diagnosis is that standards have a cost for the French economy and the European economy. Too many standards kill growth,” underlined the minister.
According to the bill, which is expected to reach Parliament in June, the “Cerfa” forms, often criticized for their complexity, will be greatly reduced, with a planned elimination of 80% by 2026. This measure should notably eliminate the need for employers to submit the 15 million annual sick leave forms to Social Security.
Bruno Le Maire also spoke of “a spring of simplification”, a period during which the government undertakes to abolish each year the standards considered superfluous or excessively restrictive by the entrepreneurial community, with the objective of “reducing the administrative burden which weighs on entrepreneurs.
This plan is the result of a process initiated last November, enriched by the conclusions of a report resulting from 45 “Simplification meetings” led by five parliamentarians and by a citizen consultation which brought together more than 5,400 proposals.
– French credit rating
Questioned by a journalist on the situation of French public accounts, Bruno Le Maire recalled his objective “to return below the deficit threshold [public] by 3% [du PIB] in 2027.
With a recent increase in the public deficit to 5.5% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2023, instead of the 4.9% forecast, the rating agencies are returning to the forefront to revise the French credit rating, which determines the level of the borrowing rate of French financial institutions.
After France stripped its “AAA” rating during the Eurozone crisis in 2012, a break of around a decade followed.
In April 2023, Fitch, one of the three main rating agencies, alongside Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s (S&P Global Ratings), marked its return by lowering the French rating from “AA” to “AA-“, thus moving from the third to the fourth best level. Other rating reductions may occur soon. On April 26, Fitch and Moody’s will announce their decision. Moody’s currently gives France a rating of “Aa2”, the third best in its system. S&P, which also gives France a rating of AA with a “negative outlook”, will follow on May 31.
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