Who is responsible for the huge public deficit expected in 2024? The current Prime Minister and his predecessor may belong to the same coalition, but they do not have the same answer. Since his appointment to Matignon, Michel Barnier has focused on the situation “very serious” that he says he has “discovery” arriving on September 5, and on the massive austerity plan that he is preparing to rectify the situation in 2025. Gabriel Attal has another reading. In his eyes, the Barnier government has its share of responsibility. This is what he explained on Friday November 8 in the Senate, where he was heard as part of an information mission on the drift in public accounts.
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For the former prime minister, now leader of the Macronist deputies, his successor voluntarily chose not to mobilize all available means to curb the slippage of accounts as quickly as possible. According to Gabriel Attal, it was possible to maintain the deficit of the State, local authorities and Social Security at 5.5% of gross domestic product (GDP) at the end of 2024, subject to taking vigorous measures .
“This is what my government would have done if there had not been the dissolution,” he said Friday. The deficit would therefore not have fallen, contrary to forecasts. But it would have at least remained at the same level as in 2023. If it ultimately worsens to 6.1% of GDP, as is now the official objective, “this is the government’s choice” Barnier, concluded the former tenant of Matignon. Words judged “very inelegant” by the two senators who led the hearing, Claude Raynal (Socialist Party, Haute-Garonne) and Jean-François Husson (Les Républicains, Meurthe-et-Moselle).
“We did our best”
In Matignon, the words of Gabriel Attal and his Bercy ministers also make people see red. “The Prime Minister has only been here for two months, replies those around him. How can we believe that the deficit would have waited until October to explode? How can we believe that by cutting spending in November and December, we will make up for ten months of slippage? »
For months, the drift in public accounts has been at the heart of a political debate which is turning into a trial of successive Macronist governments, and in particular of Bruno Le Maire, minister of the economy for seven years, as well as his last minister of budget, Thomas Cazenave. How, after an initial slippage in 2023, could the public deficit worsen so much in 2024, reaching 6.1% of GDP instead of the 4.4% initially planned, a shift of around 50 billion euros? Before parliamentarians, Gabriel Attal and his ministers denied any fault or concealment. They implicate a “sudden worsening” of the situation, a ” collapse “ unexpected tax revenue, two shocks to which they claim to have reacted quickly.
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