A new Minister of the Economy for a new budget? Éric Lombard succeeds Antoine Armand in the very strategic position of Minister of the Economy, this Monday, December 23. Managing Director of the Caisse des Dépôts, he is a former banker. Also responsible for industrial and digital sovereignty, he will be supported by two ministers and three delegate ministers.
Graduate of HEC, former investment banker, director of the insurance company at BNP… Éric Lombard then worked at Generali until 2017. He then moved from the private sector to the public, taking the helm of the Caisse des Dépôts. Appointed by Emmanuel Macron, he is the first not to be a senior civil servant in this position.
The Caisse des Dépôts is a public investment bank. It is this organization that manages regulated savings products such as the Livret A or platforms such as the CPF, the Personal Training Account, or the Maisons France Service. Éric Lombard has already had experience in left-wing governmentsthose of Édith Cresson and Pierre Bérégovoy between 1991 and 1993. He was an advisor there for the Ministry of the Economy at the time. It was Michel Sapin in particular who headed his functions at that time.
The budget, an urgent matter at Bercy
Éric Lombard is therefore an investment banker with a left-wing streak, with a hybrid public-private profile, 100% Macron compatible. Above all, he is a man of compromise. In The EchoesMichel Sapin confided: “Eric was in charge of all the complicated things to negotiate. We did not have a majority in Parliament. We always had to look for solutions and he likes that.”
With the budget, it will be served. This is what brought down Michel Barnier and therefore his predecessor at Bercy Antoine Armand. Putting together a budget that reduces the deficit, without offending any parliamentary group, is urgent. The absence of a budget has already had one consequence: the downgrading of France's rating by Moodies. This means more expensive borrowing on the market when debt repayment will already be the main expenditure item for the State in 2025.
Éric Lombard, who says he is passionate about business balance sheets, must negotiate well, and above all quickly. If France does not have a budget before September 1, the tax scale will no longer be able to be adapted in time to inflation. This means more taxes, 18 million French people.
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