The Minister of Public Accounts, Amélie de Montchalin, indicated this Wednesday that France's budget for 2025 would provide for “a historic effort” of savings to the tune of “more than 30 billion euros”.
“We are going to make a historic effort”
“We are going to make a historic effort to reduce public spending: more than 30 billion,” she declared on TF1, then emphasizing the accuracy of press information mentioning 32 billion in savings and 21 billion in increases in recipes.
She also estimated that the social partners would “manage” to find common ground on pension reform. But however evaded the question of whether this contested 2023 reform would be submitted to Parliament even in the event of disagreement, as demanded by the Socialist Party so as not to censor the government of Prime Minister François Bayrou this Thursday.
Pensions: “they will get there”
The latter indicated in his general policy speech on Tuesday that in the absence of an agreement, the current reform would continue to apply. “We cannot, while the negotiations will begin on Friday, already disarm this social dialogue, already start from the principle that the social partners are not going to succeed. They will succeed, because on arduousness, on women's careers, broken careers, they have made proposals,” declared Amélie de Montchalin.
François Bayrou resolved on Tuesday to return to Emmanuel Macron's pension reform, announcing a three-month renegotiation “conclave” “without any taboo” on leaving at 64.
He also promised “significant savings” to reduce France’s “over-indebtedness” and reduce the public deficit to 5.4% of GDP in 2025, without however detailing them in concrete terms. Amélie de Montchalin also discussed the fate of two measures which had ignited the powder in the civil service, the extension of the waiting period from one to three days in the event of sick leave, and the reduction of compensation during sick leave.
“It was discussed by the Minister of the Civil Service and the unions not necessarily to go for the two days of elimination of waiting days but to maintain the measure which means that we are only compensated at 90% of our salary “, she declared, referring the discussion to the Senate.
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