The French government has asked the European Commission for an extension on addressing its plans to tackle the budget deficit, confirmed La Tribune Dimanche and the French press agency AFP.
The extension was requested by France to ensure "consistency between the plan and the 2025 draft budget," the French Ministry of Economic Affairs informed the press, without specifying the duration of the requested delay. The French institution confirmed the information when contacted by AFP.
France, like six other EU Member States including Belgium, has been the subject of an EU procedure for excessive deficit since July. They must submit their budget plan to reduce the public deficit to the Commission by 20 September, which should ideally return to under the permitted 3% by 2027.
The political parties negotiating a new government in Belgium also face a difficult challenge with the deficit potentially rising to 4.7% in 2025. Non-compliance with the European recommendation could result in a fine of 0.05% of the GDP.
'Socially unacceptable'
Due to disappointing tax revenues in France, the deficit could rise up to 5.6% of GDP, and even 6.2% by 2025. The outgoing government prepared a "reversible" 2025 budget for its successors, planning state expenses equivalent to 2024 (€492 billion), but distributed differently between ministries.
The Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire had announced €25 billion of savings for this year, but before the early parliamentary elections in July only 10 billion were successfully put aside.
Returning to a deficit below 3% by 2027, as provided in the multi-year public finance trajectory transmitted by France to the European Commission in the spring, would mean "making around 110 billion euros in savings by 2027," warned the General Directorate of the Treasury in a July note inspected by AFP.
The President of the French Court of Auditors Pierre Moscovici also considered this trajectory "obsolete," "increasingly improbable and not necessarily desirable."
"To achieve this, we would have to save €100 billion in three years," he stated in an interview with Le Parisien published on Saturday. "This is harsh, politically difficult to implement, socially unacceptable, and economically barely consistent," he assessed.
Anti-Macron protests
Thousands of left-wing voters protested across France on Saturday against President Emmanuel Macron's appointment of right-wing Prime Minister Michel Barnier, a controversy that erupted almost two months after July's legislative elections.
The protesters shouted out phrases such as "democracy denied" and "the French didn't vote for this", and even called for Macron's resignation, expressing outrage, resentment, and anger.
The nomination of Michel Barnier, a member of The Republicans party, came as a blow to the left-wing election winners, the New Popular Front (NFP), whose candidate Lucie Castets was rejected by Macron.
