“We are not going to increase taxes, there are too many taxes in France already,” Gabriel Attal repeated this Monday morning, three days after Standard & Poor’s announcement.
A real warning shot for the government, the downgrading of the French debt rating by Standard & Poor’s (S&P) announced Friday evening will not cause the executive to deviate from its fiscal line, he insists. “We are not going to increase taxes, there are too many taxes in France already”repeated Prime Minister Gabriel Attal on - this Monday morning. “This is why we abolished the housing tax, the audiovisual royalty”added the tenant of Matignon, accusing the left and the RN of wanting to finance our social model “by taxes”.
Already on Saturday, the day after the announcement of the lowering of the French rating from AA to AA- by the American rating agency, due to the country’s chronic deficits, Bruno Le Maire had also once again ruled out any increase in taxes next year. “There will be no tax increase” in 2025, declared the Minister of Economy and Finance. “Increasing taxes is not part of the range of options” of the government, he added, believing that “When people tell me that we need to tax the rich more, in the end, we always end up increasing taxes on the middle classes, and I refuse that”. And the tenant of Bercy went further, once again assuring that the promise of a two billion euro tax cut for households would be kept.
“The answer is work”judged Gabriel Attal on -. “If we had as many of our population working as our German neighbors, we would have fewer problems for our public finances, hence unemployment insurance reform to encourage more activity”, estimated the Prime Minister. He also refused to answer the question of a possible deindexation of retirement pensions and social benefits to inflation next year, an avenue mentioned by the Minister of Public Accounts Thomas Cazenave in February, while the government is still looking for 10 billion additional savings in 2024, after having already decided on 10 billion savings at the start of the year.
