For five weeks he has been preparing, going through the interview reports, rereading his text messages and digging into his memory to save his political future and explode “the truth”he said. Thursday, November 7, the former Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, who left Bercy on September 21, leaving behind a public deficit much more serious than announced, begins his defense. Heard in the Senate, as part of an information mission on the worsening of public finances, the man who is now a professor in Lausanne, Switzerland, refutes any lie or attempt at concealment. “I have heard too much for months that the minister is talking nonsense so as not to tell my truth”he says. Facing him, the senators, pugnacious, ironically about his “fireworks of self-satisfaction”.
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In 2024, the deficit of the State, local authorities and Social Security was initially expected to return to 4.4% of gross domestic product (GDP). It actually risks reaching 6.1% of GDP. That is a gap equivalent to 50 billion euros. “A deterioration of exceptional magnitude outside of a crisis period”according to the High Council of Public Finances. Overly optimistic forecasts, bad calculations, lack of responsiveness from the ministry, as many parliamentarians suspect?
“There was no fault, no concealment, no desire to deceive, but a serious error in the assessment of revenue to which I responded with determination”, asserts Bruno Le Maire in front of the senators. In his eyes, the” hurricane “ budgetary is “80% bound” to an erroneous assessment of revenues by Bercy’s services, an assessment on which the ex-minister claims to have had no say. Faced with a “sudden deterioration” of the economic situation and “exceptional collapse” tax revenue, “we have done our utmost to preserve the restoration of our public accounts”he says. “We did things quickly, seriously” and in a “total transparency”he pleads.
“Victim of a real lynching”
At the heart of a “state scandal”, according to the opposition, Bruno Le Maire settles his scores for more than two hours. He attacks elected officials from all sides who, during Covid-19 and the inflation crisis, asked him to take measures totaling “nearly 400 billion euros”. “I resisted”he declares without fear of splashing his family. “Praise God, the minister does not decide everything alone in his office”he recalls. The former member of the Les Républicains (LR) party, converted to macronism in 2017, believes he has served, in recent weeks, as a scapegoat. “I am the victim of a real lynching”he stormed, during a lunch at the Elysée on October 24 in the presence of the head of state and former prime ministers Elisabeth Borne and Gabriel Attal, disgusted by the lack of support from his camp. “It is Emmanuel Macron’s economic record that is being targeted. If you let the attacks continue, you will lose.”, he warned.
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