( AFP / – )
The public deficit, initially forecast at 4.4% of GDP, should ultimately reach 6.1% in 2024, due in particular to much lower revenue than anticipated – discrepancies which have raised questions about the reliability of government forecasts.
After an unforeseen slippage in the French public deficit in 2024, for the second year in a row, the lesson has been learned. This Thursday, November 14,
a committee of nine economic experts
was installed by the government in order to improve macroeconomic forecast models and the management of public finances. For temporary purposes, this
“scientific committee”
will make recommendations with a view to presenting, around mid-December, a
plan d’action
by the Ministers of the Economy, Antoine Armand, and of the Budget, Laurent Saint-Martin, indicated their offices.
“Two main axes” will be addressed, according to Antoine Armand’s office: “how
improve the quality of macroeconomic forecasts
in a fairly evolving economic context (…); and how to improve during the year
monitoring budgetary developments
and the transparency of this monitoring”, particularly with Parliament.
France, one of the bad students in the euro zone
Initially forecast at 4.4% of GDP, the public deficit should ultimately reach
6.1% in 2024,
due in particular to much lower revenue than anticipated, when the growth forecast was lowered from 1.4% to 1.1%. The deficit had already slipped from 4.9% to 5.5% in 2023 for the same reason. These discrepancies, detrimental to France's credibility in the euro zone, of which it is one of the bad students, have given rise to criticism.
questions about the reliability of government forecasts.
To the point of making Pierre Moscovici, first president of the Court of Auditors and president of the High Council of Public Finances (HCFP), say that
“our revenue forecasting machine is partly broken.”
The latter had suggested at the beginning of November to entrust the forecasts to “an independent institution” like the HCFP.
The “scientific committee” is composed
“totally independent” experts
according to Bercy: Jean-Luc Tavernier (director general of INSEE), François Ecalle (president of the specialized site Fipeco), Olivier Garnier (director in charge of statistics, economic studies and international relations at the Banque de France), Xavier Ragot (president of the OFCE), Ludovic Subran (chief economist of the Allianz group), Camille Landais (delegate president of the CAE and professor of economics at the LSE), Valérie Plagnol (president of the Cercle des savers and commissioner at the CRE), Laurent Bach (professor of finance at Essec and member of the IPP) and Xavier Jaravel (professor of economics at the LSE). If there can be
“points for improvement”
on certain processes, “in no case (the ministers) are calling into question the
technical quality of the Bercy teams”,
assured the Ministry of the Economy.
