France must slash its budget deficit and trim its tottering debt pile, recently-appointed Prime Minister Michel Barnier told lawmakers on Tuesday, October 1, vowing a combination of higher taxes and spending cuts. He warned that the "colossal" and spiraling debts are a "sword of Damocles" hanging over the country's finances.
Barnier was laying out his general policy statement, listing measures that the veteran conservative and EU Brexit negotiator hopes to push through the legislature, despite not having a ruling majority for his new government.
"Our aim is to reduce the deficit to 5% (of GDP) in 2025 (...) on the right path to reach the 3% ceiling in 2029," two years later than previously planned, Barnier said, adding that two-thirds of the cuts would come from "reducing spending," but that the government would also "ask big companies making large profits to contribute to the recovery."