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ECONOMY

French lawmakers warned of ballooning budget deficit risk

The public deficit in France is at risk of reaching 5.6 percent of GDP this year and even 6.2 percent in 2025, the finance ministry has warned, as a political crisis rumbles on.

French lawmakers warned of ballooning budget deficit risk
France's Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire and France's Deputy Minister for Public Accounts Thomas Cazenave after a weekly cabinet meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris in February 2024. (Photo by Ludovic MARIN / AFP)

The risk of France’s growing budget deficit piles further pressure on President Emmanuel Macron, who has been intensifying efforts to find a new cabinet following the inconclusive snap parliamentary elections in July.

The caretaker administration under Macron’s ally, Gabriel Attal, has been in place since July.

Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire and Thomas Cazenave, minister for public accounts, expressed concern about the “extremely rapid increase in local government expenditure” in a letter sent to lawmakers on Monday evening.

On top of that, the two ministers warned that tax revenue forecasts might not be met.

France, Europe’s second biggest economy, is aiming for a deficit of 5.1 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) this year.

Eric Coquerel, the head of the finance committee in the National Assembly, French parliament’s lower house, said the public sector budget deficit could reach 5.6 percent this year and would rise to 6.2 percent next year if budgetary cuts of 60 billion euros are not made.

“Revenues have fallen, that’s the main problem,” Coquerel told broadcaster BFM Business on Tuesday.

France is under pressure from Brussels to get its finances back within EU rules, which demand a deficit below three percent of a country’s GDP, and public debt under 60 percent. Currently France’s deficit stands at 5.5 percent of GDP, and its debt at 110 percent of GDP.

October 1 is the legal deadline by which a government must present the parliament with a draft budget law for 2025.

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PROTESTS

Where will there be protests in France this weekend?

French President Emmanuel Macron's decision to appoint the right-wing ex-Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, to the role of prime minister has created uproar on the Left, with renewed calls for protests across the country on Saturday. Here is where they are planned.

Where will there be protests in France this weekend?

After 51 days of deliberating, French President Emmanuel Macron finally appointed the ex-Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, from the right-wing Les Républicains to the role of prime minister on Thursday.

The decision immediately sparked outcry amongst the left-wing opposition, leading to renewed calls for protests on Saturday, September 7th.

Where will there be protests?

So far, there are 133 planned across France.

  • Paris (2pm at Place de la Bastille)
  • Lille (6.30pm at Place de la République)
  • Rennes (3pm at Place Charles de Gaulle)
  • Strasbourg (2.30pm at Place Kléber)
  • Bordeaux (11am at Place de la Victoire)
  • Marseille (2pm at Porte d’Aix)
  • Toulouse (4pm at Métro Jean Jaurès)
  • Lyon (3pm at Place Bellecour)
  • Montpellier (6pm in front of the Préfecture)

There will also be several rallies taking place abroad, including demonstrations planned in London, Berlin and Montreal in front of local French consulates.

You can find the full list of protests scheduled for Saturday on the LFI website.

Why call for protests?

Left-wing political leaders like Jean-Luc Melenchon, head of La France Insoumise (LFI), said that Macron naming Barnier meant the election had been “stolen from the French”. 

READ MORE: Can French President Emmanuel Macron really be impeached?

While leader of the Parti Socialiste, Olivier Faure, denounced Macron’s choice as a “democratic betrayal”, adding “the French people who voted to put NFP in the lead in parliament, but [he] chooses a prime minister from a party that got six percent of the vote”.

Initially, Saturday’s protest was called by the left-wing party, La France Insoumise, to push back against Macron’s delay in choosing a prime minister and his rejection of the NFP candidate, Lucie Castets.

Others, including the Green and Communist parties, as well as several youth organisations, have joined in the call for mobilisations.

However, the centre-left Parti Socialiste (the fourth member of the left-wing coalition, Nouveau Front Populaire) has declined to call for mobilisation.

In the July snap parliamentary election, the left-wing coalition (Nouveau Front Populaire, or NFP) took home the largest number of seats in parliament (193), followed by the Macron’s centrist alliance (164), the far-right Rassemblement National (143), and Les Républicains (47).

No group or party secured an absolute majority, creating a hung parliament. In the eyes of NFP, the left-wing should have been called upon to choose a prime minister, due to their position as the largest group in parliament.

However, Macron rejected this claim, arguing in favour of a ‘broader coalition’. He then refused the NFP candidate, economist Lucie Castets, arguing she would not survive a confidence vote.

As for Barnier, 73, he previously served as the European Union’s Brexit negotiator, and now holds the record as the oldest Prime Minister in the history of modern France, succeeding Gabriel Attal, who – at 35 – had been the youngest.

READ MORE: What you should know about Michel Barnier and how he’d like to change France

The veteran right-wing politician has held a collection of top jobs as minister, European Union commissioner and negotiator on Brexit during a half-century political career that has seen him tack further to the right in recent years – and his longevity earned him the ‘French Joe Biden’ epithet.

Barnier also served as a minister under the right-wing administrations of presidents Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy.

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