to lower the price of fuel and energy, savings, “we will find them” (RN)

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– Jordan Bardella, president of the RN, during his press conference on June 24, 2024

Small or large, business leaders – and the economic world as a whole – were waiting for Jordan Bardella to finally quantify the cost of the National Rally (RN) program, less than a week before the first round of early legislative elections, which see the far-right party prancing at the top of the polls. The ace ! The president of the RN did not discuss figures during his press conference on Monday June 24, at least not before the question and answer session with journalists. Except to ridicule the “budgetary situation of near bankruptcy” in which France finds itself after seven years of presidency of Emmanuel Macron, the country today carrying a debt of 3,000 billion euros.

But Jordan Bardella had to come out of the woods after several questions on the financing of the main measure that he intends to implement immediately if he becomes Prime Minister at the end of the legislative elections, namely the reduction in VAT, from 20% to 5.5%, on fuel, fuel oil, gas and electricity. A measurement “necessary for the competitiveness of businesses” and to give a boost to the purchasing power of the French. Integrated into an amending finance bill which would be examined by Parliament this summer, it would cost 7 billion euros by the end of 2024, indicated Jordan Bardella. A sum that cannot be found under a horse’s hoof. The savings necessary to offset the cost of this VAT reduction, “we will find them”initially limited himself to assuring Jordan Bardella, claiming to have “tracks”.

With the RN program, an additional deficit of 8.5 billion per year, according to Ifrap

We will have to wait until the very end of his press conference for the one who intends to put an end to the “budgetary unreason” of the current government clarifies these avenues. The president of the RN expects 1.2 billion euros in savings from the removal of the tax niche for shipowners, who no longer pay corporate tax but a flat rate tax depending on the goods transported. An economy to which will be added a drop of 2 billion euros in France’s contribution to the European budgetand 3 billion euros in revenue linked to a increase in the contribution on infra-marginal annuities, which consists of a tax on the superprofits of energy companies. That’s a total of 6.2 billion euros. 800 million euros are therefore missing to finance the cost of 7 billion of the reduction in VAT on energy products.

“Our measures will be quantified and worked on as we go”, answers Jordan Bardella. And the boss of the RN asked “a little humility to those who have incurred 300 billion euros in debt in two years (the government, Editor’s note)” and who accuse him of too vague financing of his program. How much does this entire program cost? 100 billion euros, as estimated by the Montaigne Institute during the 2022 presidential campaign? “I hear more like 9 billion”retorts Jordan Bardella, invoking the very recent Ifrap report on “the true cost of the RN program”. According to the think tank, “the tax cuts announced by the far-right party, to the tune of 17.6 billion euros, combined with the 9 billion euros in savings that it would generate in spending, would create a deficit additional minimum of 8.5 billion euros per year.