“My ministry is undoubtedly the one which has contributed most strongly, in proportion to its weight in the general budget of the State, to the measures envisaged for the recovery of France's public accounts”, recognizes the Minister of Public Affairs himself. Foreign Affairs, opening the examination of credits allocated to public development assistance (ODA) in the Senate on January 16.
Before the senators, Jean-Noël Barrot was initially to defend the adoption of a budget of 4.5 billion euros for this mission, which includes all the donations and loans granted by France to developing countries. . A reduction of almost 2 billion euros compared to the year 2024. But a government amendment, modified a few hours before its vote, cut the APD budget by an additional 780 million euros, bringing it at 3.8 billion euros.
“The effort required seems disproportionate to me”
Faced with these drastic cuts, which represent 35% of the ODA envelope, a large part of the senators did not hide their dissatisfaction. “The effort required seems disproportionate to me. Beyond a planer blow, this cut reflects a real renunciation of the ambition displayed by France. Such a destabilization of the volume of the mission's credits will not be without consequences,” warned the special co-rapporteur of the finance committee, centrist senator Raphaël Daubet.
“Certainly, budgetary recovery is a necessity that we share. However, we are still convinced of the usefulness of this policy in supporting the development of the most deprived countries. It is also in our interest, whether in terms of security, the fight against uncontrolled immigration, or the economy,” adds Les Républicains senator Christian Cambon.
Last year, at the start of the examination of the 2025 budget, Jean-Noël Barrot had already had to explain these budget cuts to worried senators from the Foreign Affairs Committee. As during his hearing, the minister defended this “constrained” budget, without seeming to believe it himself: “It should be remembered that this mission had 2.6 billion euros in credits in 2017. Hindsight is certain, but it does not erase the investment effort made in recent years. »
In the summer of 2021, Parliament adopted a programming law aimed at gradually increasing public development assistance, from 0.55% of France's gross national income in 2022 to 0.7% in 2025. While the timetable for this programming law is coming to an end, the objective has not been met: this year, ODA will represent 0.45% of gross national income.
-The left fumes, several right-wing senators do not hide their discomfort
Faced with this decline, the senatorial left is fuming. “This is an irresponsible, populist and absolutely shameful decision. Such a renunciation of the objectives of the 2021 law is all the more surprising as other programming laws – the orientation law of the Ministry of the Interior, the military programming law or that of justice – are preserved. , castigates communist senator Michelle Gréaume.
If the mission's credits were finally adopted, due to the favorable vote of the senatorial majority, several elected officials on the right did not hide their discomfort. “We will vote on this amendment, but personally I will do it reluctantly,” lamented the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Cédric Perrin, at the time of the adoption of the government amendment leading to a new cut of 780 million euros in the ODA budget. On the contrary, others consider the effort justified. “In a degraded budgetary context, it is in no way illegitimate to question the volume and quality of our public spending,” assumes centrist senator Michel Canévet, special co-rapporteur of the finance committee.
The only development voted by the Senate to modify the distribution of credits proposed by the government: the “solidarity fund for development”, a component of ODA which is used to finance developing countries, is credited with more than one billion dinars. additional euros, taken from other aspects of the mission. This fund is mainly financed by the financial transactions tax, which senators chose to increase from 0.3 to 0.4% last December, when examining the revenue side of the budget.
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