Once he has negotiated his government platform with parties at the height of their political power and their political impotence, and while he questions what he can do with Parliament as it is constituted Today, the Prime Minister appointed this Friday will be able to usefully reread the testimony given the day before by Bruno Le Maire before the Parliamentary Inquiry Commission of the National Assembly.
Questioned on his management of the Ministry of Finance and on his results after seven years at Bercy, Bruno Le Maire sharply replied to the deputies who attacked him on the slippage of deficits: “I am speaking in front of parliamentarians who have just voted […] 60 billion in additional spending” for 2025, he asserted. An Assembly which adopts “all new expenditures” and “eliminates all savings”, losing “the sense of economic realities” and putting France in the hands of its creditors.
Certainly, we can doubt whether Bruno Le Maire is best placed to teach his successors a lesson. Had he resigned last spring he would be celebrated today for his vista. Lure of power? Pride in its economic results and on the employment front? Race for the longevity record? A little of it all at once. But above all, the former boss of Bercy can blame himself for not having been able to impose savings measures and an amending budget on an Emmanuel Macron President who was negligent about public spending when he did not provoke it himself.
It is in the middle of this devastated landscape, with actors who have lost all notion of good management and measurement, that the Prime Minister will have to maneuver. The bad news is that we do not see why the deputies, intoxicated by their power to bring down governments, would suddenly give up their excesses.
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