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NYTimes
New York Times
10 Oct 2024
Liz Alderman


NextImg:France Unveils Tough Austerity Budget to Mend Its Finances

The French government on Thursday sought to head off a rapidly growing financial crunch, unveiling plans to plug one of the worst deficit and debt burdens in Europe with an austerity program involving deep spending cuts and hefty one-off taxes that would fall mostly on the rich and big corporations.

“Our deficit is considerable,” Prime Minister Michel Barnier said Thursday, hours before appearing at the French Parliament with a new budget aimed at saving 60 billion euros next year — one of the biggest single rounds of belt-tightening in France’s recent history. “Everyone is going to have to play their part.”

Mr. Barnier needs to find a whopping €110 billion in savings over the next several years to rein in French finances and bring them back in line with European Union budget rules. The debt and the deficit are ballooning rapidly after President Emmanuel Macron spent more than €100 billion in the last several years to shield households and businesses from an energy crisis.

Today, France is in worse fiscal straits than Spain, Italy and Greece, with the deficit surging this month to 6.1 percent of economic output, from 5.5 percent last year. The debt has exploded to more than €3.2 trillion, or more than 110 percent of the country’s gross domestic product. Interest payments on the debt alone cost more than €50 billion this year and will rise to €80 billion by 2027 if nothing is done. By contrast, France’s entire defense budget is €47 billion.

“The country is in an unprecedented situation,” Antoine Armand, France’s new economy minister, said at a news media briefing. “The economy is resilient, but our public debt is colossal. To not recognize this would be cynical and fatal.”

Mr. Barnier is aiming for major cuts in 2025 to stop the bleeding. He has insisted the burden will fall on those who can most afford it. But opposition parties warned that the new budget would impose harsh austerity on the French.


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