From Mayotte where she is carrying out a three-day visit in solidarity with the Mahorais after the devastating passage of Cyclone Childo, Marine Le Pen, the leader of the RN deputies described, on Monday, as a “very bad signal” the declarations of the Minister of Economy Éric Lombard who seemed to favor dialogue with the left in the preparation of the 2025 budget.
“When we discuss with all the political forces, we discuss with all the political forces,” she said on BFMTV. She was reacting to the comments of Éric Lombard, the Minister of the Economy, who declared that he saw more “prospects of a fruitful dialogue” with the left-wing parties, in particular with the Socialist Party, the Communist Party and the Greens, than with the National Rally when it has just launched consultations with the political parties on the budget.
VideoÉric Lombard, new Minister of the Economy, calls for “treating our endemic evil, the deficit”
He notably received on Monday a delegation from the Socialist Party led by its first secretary Olivier Faure. The meeting with the National Rally is scheduled for Friday.
Marine Le Pen added that her party was waiting for the construction of a “fair” budget, assuring that RN parliamentarians would make “the effort” to ensure that the country had a budget and stressing that her party had been “the only political training to draft a counter-budget. She recalled the principles on which the RN insists: not “increasing” the taxes of the French, making savings on the “lifestyle” of the State, and not taxing “inconsiderately” businesses.
In its counter-budget presented in October, the RN proposed making 15 billion euros in savings with “a counter-budget to break with 50 years of deficits and poor public accounting”. According to the RN, the planned savings would reduce the increase in spending to +1.6% (compared to +2.1% in the government's project), below +1.8% inflation. These savings would be made in particular by the regions and public intermunicipal cooperation establishments (-1.3 billion euros), as well as by “cuts impacting the State apparatus” (-4 billion).
Marine Le Pen's party also proposed to “restore equality of waiting days between civil servants and private sector employees” or to reduce “the state's lifestyle” by 600 million euros. A large part was also devoted to cuts in the immigration budget to the tune of 4 billion euros with the replacement of state medical aid by “emergency medical aid”, the reservation of accommodation emergency to “people in a regular situation”, or even the granting of the activity bonus only to people of French nationality.
Added to this, a “significant tax rebalancing, of more than 20 billion euros” with the main measure being a “tax on share buybacks of 33%”, which would bring in, according to the RN, “almost 9 billion of euros”.
It remains to be seen whether Éric Lombard and the Minister of Public Accounts Amélie de Montchalin will listen to these grievances, otherwise the RN could once again press the censorship button.
