On France Inter on Sunday, government spokesperson Maud Bregeon announced that “the planned staff increases” in Defense, Justice and the Interior will a priori be “preserved”.
Some will have to do just as well with less. A few days before the presentation of the 2025 budget, Thursday in the Council of Ministers, the final decisions are about to be made. While the government is looking for 60 billion euros in savings, including 40 billion in spending cuts, what sauce will major administrations be served with in the finance bill (PLF)? On France Inter, this Sunday, government spokesperson Maud Bregeon warned that “each ministry” must “make an effort”. With however “two red lines”.
First, the regalian: “Defence, Justice and the Interior” are wallets where “we must preserve the increases in staff numbers which had been provided for by the programming laws.” “The objective is for the numbers to continue to increase, to make everything related to the state sacred”assures the former deputy for Hauts-de-Seine. In an interview with La Tribune Sunday, Michel Barnier nevertheless indicated that Defense, Justice or Research must also “provide their share of efforts, particularly through redeployment”.
Then, regarding other sectors, Maud Bregeon wants the “efforts required” impact “the quality of public service as little as possible.”
“Exceptional crises”
She considers these restrictions necessary to achieve the Prime Minister’s objective. Namely, “avoid a financial crisis, let France tomorrow become the Greece of 2010.” In other words, too great a debt which risks dragging down many European countries with it. “For that, we have a plan, we propose an equation that works”praises Maud Bregeon, recalling that France “went through exceptional crises”like Covid or energy inflation. Which led to “exceptional expenses” that he “it is appropriate today to regulate.”
After a week marked by tensions between the Prime Minister and the presidential camp over possible tax increases, Michel Barnier did not want to further burden the actors who are part of his majority. In his Sunday interview, he puts water in his wine: “The debt found is not only that of (his) immediate predecessors” more “the fruit of twenty years of neglect”. And to credit Gabriel Attal with having “started to reduce public spending and make efforts”. Way of streamlining the relationship with the president of the EPR deputies, whom he criticized last week in the National Assembly for having left a heavy deficit (6.2% of GDP). And from which he expects “savings proposals”.
