The chairman of the Finance Committee of the National Assembly, Eric Coquerel (LFI), requested on Thursday a corrective finance law for 2024, before the draft budget for 2025, to take into account “the cancellation of 16.5 billion” euros of credits which have been frozen.
The resigning Minister of the Economy “Bruno Le Maire advises that to the 10 billion that were cancelled at the beginning of the year, we add the cancellation of 16.5 billion that were frozen”, explained the deputy on France Inter.
“That would mean 26.5 billion in savings on the budget” for the current year, he said, mentioning “20% cancellation” of credits for the Sports budget or “14%” for the Ecology budget.
These are “consequential sums”, he stressed, “an austerity cure”. “It is not possible that it will pass like this!”
“So there needs to be a debate in Parliament,” he added, either during an extraordinary session that his group has requested, or “we will have time to do it in October.”
On Monday, during his hearing before the Finance Committee of the Assembly, Bruno Le Maire had acknowledged the need for a corrective finance law, even arguing for it to include additional revenues by taxing share buybacks and energy companies.
But this implies “political choices,” he recalled. “These choices do not belong to me,” conceded the departing minister, who must bid farewell to Bercy on Thursday in front of many guests.
Eric Coquerel also stated that the Finance Committee would “profoundly transform the Liberal budget that is being prepared for us”, to add “fiscal justice measures” and “enhance earned income”. “We will see what the government does at that time.”
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Regarding the “ceiling letters” – which set the appropriations by ministry for 2025 – he repeated that he had officially requested that they be communicated to the Commission, while the budget timetable for 2025 is increasingly tight. “We are already six weeks behind schedule compared to what the law provides for on the transmission of budgetary information to Parliament,” observed the deputy of La France Insoumise.
Otherwise, “we will go and get them with Charles de Courson (the general rapporteur of the Budget, editor’s note) on Monday at Matignon,” he warned.
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