The most anticipated figure of the week, and even of the month.
After days of feverish waiting, INSEE formalized, as expected, this Tuesday, the public deficit for 2023. It amounts to 5.5% of GDP, at 154.0 billion euros, showing the The extent of the slippage in state spending last year, compared to revenues.
The government had initially envisaged a deficit of 4.9% of GDP, a figure well below reality, showing how difficult France's debt reduction trajectory promises to be.
The figure established by the National Institute of Statistics is slightly lower than the fears of the general rapporteur of the Senate Finance Committee, Jean-François Husson.
Counting on a deficit of 5.6% during a surprise visit to Bercy last Thursday, Senator LR criticized the executive for its “disastrous budgetary management”.
In 2023, the public deficit amounts to 5.5% of GDP, the public debt to 110.6% of GDPhttps://t.co/KzGajaT52a
— Insee (@InseeFr) March 26, 2024
Public debt at 110.6% of GDP
The French public debt reaches 110.6% of GDP at the end of 2023, said the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies.
This is less than in 2022, when it stood at 111.9%, but almost a percentage point above the government's forecast (109.7%).
The third most indebted country in the euro zone, France has committed to reducing its deficit below 3% of GDP in 2027, a line that Bruno Le Maire promised on Friday to keep “at all costs”.
To maintain the course of 3%, the government will have to make a new turn of the budgetary screw, Emmanuel Macron warned on Friday.
Ten billion euros of cuts have already been made in mid-February in the 2024 budget. But it will be necessary to supplement "in all useful actions of public spending", indicated Emmanuel Macron, targeting in particular social or local authority spending - which together represent 70% of public spending, recalled Bruno Le Maire in an interview with Sud Ouest published on Saturday.
“We will not increase taxes,” he also repeats in each of his speeches.
The majority divided on the solutions to apply
In an interview with RTL on Monday, François Bayrou insisted on a debate on a targeted increase in taxes, following in the footsteps of the President of the National Assembly Yaël Braun-Pivet who considered it necessary to consider the possibility of taxing superprofits from certain flagships.
“A discussion can be opened.
The Minister of Economy and Finance is preparing next year's budget (…) It is good that the government and parliamentarians sit around the table and explore freely,” said argue the president of MoDem and High Commissioner for Planning.
Before the latest deficit assessments, the Court of Auditors already estimated at 50 billion the savings that the government needed to make to return to 3% in 2027. Next step: the government invited the presidents of groups to Parliament, the presidents of committees on Thursday of finances of the two Assemblies as well as the Budget rapporteurs for an information meeting on public finances, in the presence of Bruno Le Maire and Catherine Vautrin, the Minister of Labor.