THE EDITORIAL BY RAPHAËL LEGENDRE. With a deficit of 156.3 billion euros in 2024, more than a third of state spending (35.7%) is financed by debt. Which does not prevent the Elysée from congratulating itself on “the control of expenditure (…) as well as a level of revenue higher than the last forecast.” Lunar.
If the State's 2024 deficit is a little less serious than expected (-6.4 billion compared to the end of management law), it remains at an absolutely stratospheric level of 156.3 billion euros. Calculated not in points of GDP as is customary, but as a percentage like any private deficit, the State deficit reaches 35.7%.
An abnormally high level, very worrying. But even more worrying is the perfectly lunar speech of the political class which accompanies it.
42 billion euros gap in revenue
It's quite simple: everyone lies. Starting with the Elysée which writes in the report of the Council of Ministers this Wednesday that “the results of the execution of the 2024 budget testify to the control of State expenditure as well as a level of revenue higher than the latest forecast.” You might fall out of your chair.
Since the Covid crisis, we have maintained a Keynesian level of spending on steroids and revenues have shown a gap of 42 billion in 2024, after more than 20 billion in 2023, and we are talking about “spending control” and revenue “higher than forecast”. It's a joke.
And unfortunately it's like that everywhere on the benches of the political class. La France insoumise denounces pseudo-austerity while social benefits have increased by 100 billion in four years.
In the PS, the political Holy Grail would be to return to 62 years for pensions, the country's biggest expense, while all European countries are pushing back the retirement age.
-The central bloc is obviously responsible for this catastrophic financial situation that we will have to pay for for years.
And the right is not more serious with guilty double talk on public finances. On the one hand, she advocates budgetary seriousness, on the other, she refuses the Assembly to vote for a pension reform that their senators have been supporting for years, she refuses the freezing of pensions, praises energy checks, price freezes at the pump which cost a fortune… And the far right is not more coherent in terms of public finances.
Widespread carelessness
And all this will continue because, for the moment, no abseil rope is working. Nor Europe because our European neighbors unanimously validated France's new degraded trajectory this week.
Nor the markets. Indeed, two days ago, the markets offered 130 billion euros for the latest Treasury auction, which only asked for 10 billion. Nor public opinion which understands nothing and who, overall, doesn't care.
Proof that the drift will continue: the Social Security deficit was to be reduced from 18 to 16 billion in 2025, we learned this morning in Les Echos that it will probably be 25 billion in reality. The mismanagement continues. No one cares, but all of this will end up paying dearly one day.
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