The Minister of Economy and Finance, Bruno Le Maire, once again ruled out any tax increase in 2025, the day after the downgrading of France’s sovereign rating by the S&P agency, due to chronic government deficits. country, Saturday 1er June. “There will be no tax increase” in 2025, declared Mr. Le Maire on BFM-TV, “increasing taxes is not part of the range of options” of the government.
Asked about a possible deindexation of retirement pensions and social benefits to inflation next year, a potential savings route, the Bercy tenant replied that no decision had been taken. “For 2025, no decision has even been prepared yet, since I will prepare them with the oppositions”he clarified, with a view to the next finance bill, adding that he would “look at all the options that make it possible to restore public finances in 2027”.
The government finds itself under pressure, after the downgrading of its sovereign debt rating on Friday by the S&P rating agency, “AA” has “AA-”, the threat of which had been looming for several quarters. To justify its decision, S&P explains that “French public debt as a proportion of GDP will increase due to larger than expected deficits in 2023-2027”a darker vision than during its previous analysis, in December 2023.
The minister once again justified, in a very personal tone, the widening deficits since 2020 by expenses linked to the Covid crisis and the energy tariff shield. “If today we have a high level of debt, that’s why? It’s because I saved the French economy”underlined Mr. Le Maire. “I saved the factories, I saved the restaurateurs, I saved the hoteliers, I saved the world of events, I saved jobs, skills, the aeronautical industry”he listed, adding to the list that he was proud to have also saved Renault and Air France.
Read also | Standard & Poor’s: a bad rating for France’s economic credibility
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The government seeks 20 billion euros in savings
The minister highlighted the 10 billion euros in savings in state spending decided at the start of the year and his desire to seek 10 billion euros in additional cuts in 2024. In a video broadcast on YouTube, the minister insisted by declaring: “We will continue on exactly the same path, without speeding up or slowing down, but sticking to our strategy. »
For the opposition, this strategy is a “poor management of public finances” from Bruno Le Maire and Emmanuel Macron, https://twitter.com/ECiotti/status/1796641682600951896 by the president of the Les Républicains party, Eric Ciotti, after the announcement of the downgrading of France’s credit rating by S&P.
Marine Le Pen considers, for her part, https://twitter.com/MLP_officiel/status/1796646427264712735 that “the catastrophic management of public finances by governments as incompetent as they are arrogant has put [leur] countries in very serious difficulties with record taxes, deficits and debts”. The president of the National Rally group at the National Assembly calls on the French to sanction “heavily” Emmanuel Macron in the European elections to prevent the government from imposing “an ineffective and unfair social and fiscal “purge”” after the election.
The tone is the same at La France insoumise, which judges in a press release that the government “use oneself[a] of this deterioration to say that we must redouble our efforts in reducing public spending and attacks on social protection in order to reduce deficits”. “The rating agencies, like the debt scarecrow, are only pretexts to increase austerity and supply-side policies”denounces the left party.
Read the decryption | Article reserved for our subscribers The downgrading of France’s rating by Standard & Poor’s, a warning shot for the government
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