The government is struggling to emerge from the parliamentary slump. After a fifteen-day truce, the deputies heard on Monday April 29 the ministers Bruno Le Maire (Economy) and Thomas Cazenave (Budget) on the stability program sent to Brussels. Under fire from critics, the Minister of Finance Bruno Le Maire assured, in a hemicycle with sparse ranks, that he wanted to exceed the “political quarrels” And ” give a hand “ to all opposition parliamentarians who wanted to restore public finances.
Opposite, the National Rally (RN) and France Insoumise (LFI) threatened the government with a motion of censure if it did not table a draft amending finance law (PLFR) for 2024. In this troubled context, the government finally communicated 30 minutes before the end of the debates the reform program sent to Brussels and annexed to the stability program. But few concrete measures appear in the 25-page document that The gallery was able to consult.
HAS For comparison, the program sent by France to the European Commission in 2023 was much thicker (237 pages). Threatened with excessive deficit proceedings next June, the government wants to give assurances to Brussels on its reform roadmap. The executive knows that a downgrade of the French rating on May 31 by the Standard and Poor’s agency just before the European elections would be a disavowal for the majority.
Public deficit: 2025, the year not to be missed for the government
Full employment: vague measures
Unsurprisingly, the government insisted on its objective of “full employment”. To achieve this, the executive explains that it is necessary to favor “integration and support for the unemployed”, “strengthen incentives for returning to work” And “skills development through vocational training”. Young people are particularly in the government’s sights. The authors mention in particular “vocational training reform” And “policy in favor of apprenticeship”. The government also wants to focus on the employment of seniors, citing in particular the impact of the pension reform implemented since September 1, 2023, and the unemployment insurance reform.
Unemployment insurance: the government wants to toughen conditions for executives
But Emmanuel Macron’s objective of achieving unemployment below 5% is in decline. In the absence of robust growth in 2023, job creation has stalled, causing unemployment to rise in France from 7.2% of the active population to 7.5% at the end of the year. In his letter to the President of the Republic, the Governor of the Bank of France François Villeroy de Galhau, moreover, expressed doubts about the objective of full employment while French productivity is at half mast. The Central Bank expects unemployment to rise to 7.8% in 2025.
Full employment in 2027: François Villeroy de Galhau no longer believes in Emmanuel Macron’s target
Competitiveness and innovation: no quantified objectives
The other axis of reform put forward in the document concerns “competitiveness and innovation”. Here again, the reform options sent to the European Commission are quite vague.
It is ” “continue and amplify the reindustrialization movement already underway, both by providing financial support for public and private innovation and R&D, and by further simplifying the regulatory environment to bring about the emergence of tomorrow’s green industry in France.”
In the document, no quantified targets on reindustrialization or innovation appear. However, the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire has not hidden his objective of increasing the share of the manufacturing industry in GDP from 10% to 15%, without necessarily setting a precise timetable. Which is considered “optimistic” in the eyes of several experts. In a report that he must submit to Bercy in the coming days, the former Industry advisor to the Elysée Olivier Lluansi discusses what France can “reasonably to do” by 2035, “it’s 12% or 13%”.
In terms of innovation, France’s spending on Research and Development (2.4% of GDP) lags behind the European objectives set at the beginning of the 2000s (3% of GDP). The government is counting in particular on the continuation of the France 2030 investment plan with a budget of 54 billion euros to strengthen innovation in a few strategic sectors. On the ecological transition, the document explains that the objective is to position “France as leader”. It remains to be seen what the Commission will think of all these objectives whose contours are still vague.
