After the Senate in October, it is now up to the National Assembly to examine the reasons for the budgetary slippage that occurred in 2023 and 2024. The finance committee, which has acquired the powers of a commission of inquiry into This subject, heard for this purpose the former Minister of Economy and Finance, Bruno Le Maire, Thursday December 12.
Challenged by opposition to public deficit forecasts for 2024 which rose from 4.4% at the start of the year to 6.1% of GDP at the start of October, Mr. Le Maire said he “responsible for all [ses] actions, of all [ses] decisions, of all [ses] choice as finance minister ». “I am responsible for forecast errors on the revenues of my services which were under my authority”he added, also saying to himself “responsible for the expenses that[’ils ont] committed to confronting Covid and the inflationary crisis.”
The former Minister of Economy and Finance, however, judged “very easy” to make him wear the “responsibility for the deterioration of public accounts in 2023 and 2024. So easy that almost everyone since [son] withdrawal from public life has taken this path with suspicious unanimity, unworthy of our democracy”.
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Before the senators, at the beginning of November, Mr. Le Maire estimated that there was no “had no fault, no concealment, no desire to deceive, but a serious error in the assessment of revenue”. He then considered that the” hurricane “ budgetary was “80% bound” to an erroneous assessment of revenues by Bercy's services, an assessment on which the ex-minister claims to have had no say.
“Collective denial”
During this introductory statement before answering questions from deputies of the finance committee on Thursday morning in the Assembly, Bruno Le Maire also placed the blame for the budgetary situation on the oppositions. “At what point was the recovery of the nation's accounts seriously discussed in your debates? Never “he said.
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The former minister does not want “bear responsibility for this collective blindness which [leur] makes it impossible to see a simple thing: neither taxes nor pieces of string will solve the problem of debt and deficits in France, which dates back fifty years”. “In seven days with censorship, you have derailed France again”also launched Mr. Le Maire to the deputies, accusing them three times of“hypocrisy”. “Our mass unemployment, our industrial collapse since 1980, our social model, the weight of pensions are the only real explanations of the situation we are in”he assured.
After the hearings held in October and November, the senators of the finance committee bluntly targeted the Macronists on the causes of this budgetary slippage, deploring a “collective denial” and “short-sighted calculations”. “The government actually knew the critical state of our public finances as early as December 2023. In our opinion, it should have reacted vigorously. But he didn't do it.”then castigated the socialist president of the finance committee, Claude Raynal.
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