Dismissing the idea pushed by Bruno Le Maire since the spring, Michel Barnier does not wish to amend the budget for the current year, banking on that of the 2025 financial year to begin to correct the trajectory of public finances.
Despite the sharp slippage in the public deficit, which should reach 6.1% of GDP at the end of the year instead of the successively set objectives of 4.4% and 5.1%, the government will not amend the budget. current exercise. Supported by the previous Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire, the idea of a draft amending finance law (PLFR), or “budgetary collective”, was ruled out by Michel Barnier, according to information from the Monde.
Such a text could have implemented additional savings or revenue measures from this fourth quarter of 2024, before the application of the budget for 2025, which the government must present on October 10 and which provides for a “budgetary effort” of 60 billion euros, including 40 billion in spending cuts. Since the spring, Bruno Le Maire had called for the development of a PLFR. To his great dismay, Emmanuel Macron had made a contrary decision, dictated in particular by the political context, in the run-up to the European elections in June.
After canceling 10 billion euros of credit by decree in February, Le Maire then resolved to “freeze” 16.5 others for the current year, the fate of which is still pending. Until the end of his lease at Bercy, he continued to advocate for a PLFR: “Voting an amending finance bill in April would have avoided drafting one now, in more delicate political circumstances – but let’s not cry over spilled milk,” he declared on September 9 during a parliamentary hearing.
As for Michel Barnier’s refusal to embark on such a path, he is based, according to the Worldon three considerations: the little time he has and the difficulties he encounters in drawing up the budget for the coming year; the political risk of defending a second budgetary text when it does not have a majority in the Assembly, which puts it at the mercy of a motion of censure; finally, Bercy would not judge “strictly necessary” such a catch-up text. With its proposed budget for 2025, the government hopes to reduce the deficit to 5% of GDP at the end of the next financial year.
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