2023-08-23 18:39:50
In an interview at Point, Emmanuel Macron outlines the sequence of the 2024 Budget which starts this fall. And maintains its desire to clean up public finances following exceptional years marked by the Covid crisis and the war in Ukraine.
Emmanuel Macron is making his comeback. A few hours following the first Council of Ministers and the speech of Elisabeth Borne, who notably assured that no tax increase is planned for households, the President of the Republic gave a long interview to the weekly Point. The opportunity for him to outline the challenges that await him for the rest of his second five-year term.
Economic challenges in particular with, from the outset, the finalization of the 2024 Budget. A budget placed under the sign of savings at all levels. The president has made the “consolidation” of public finances the course of economic policy for the coming months. However, he does not deny his action in recent years, marked in particular by the extraordinary expenses linked to the Covid.
“I defend the policy that we have carried out, with devices that are also unprecedented because of the successive health or economic challenges that we have had to meet, he reminds Le Point. We have allowed industrial companies, traders and craftsmen to hold on. Should we let them go bankrupt and then pay them unemployment?
Emmanuel Macron thus boasts a balanced policy between tax cuts and control of public spending. “Between 2017 and 2020, we have never lowered current spending to this extent while lowering taxes,” he says.
The fact remains that, even if the war in Ukraine has once more generated economic instability, this exceptional period is now over for the head of state. France’s public debt has exploded, now reaching 111% of GDP (compared to 98% when it came to power in 2017, according to Eurostat). A slippage estimated at 700 billion euros that Germany has not experienced.
“We will fall below 3% deficit in 2027”
“It is a reality that we have a high level of public spending”, admits the President of the Republic.
“We must continue to lower it, starting by reducing the exceptional measures put in place to deal with the energy price crisis which are not intended to be sustainable.”
Before the summer, the government had already put forward one of the main avenues for savings planned for 2024: state spending. Each ministry, each administration (or almost) must get involved.
“Next year, as in 2018, government spending will fall by more than 3% in volume, that is to say taking inflation into account. We will begin to reduce the debt burden by 2026 and will go back below the 3% deficit in 2027.”
“When I look at the structure of our public expenditure, beyond the exceptional support mechanisms in the face of crises, where are the costs? Of our social expenditure, essentially”, adds Emmanuel Macron, who takes the opportunity, in this sense, to defend his pension reform, “fair and effective”, pending the retirement by points which he considers to be “the meaning of history”.
Macron brushes aside the debate on the number of civil servants
Still on the subject of state spending, asked regarding the number of civil servants, Emmanuel Macron sweeps away this recurring debate with the back of his hand.
“The large battalions of civil servants, apart from local communities, are the military, teachers, hospital caregivers, magistrates, members of the prison administration, the police, they are not those of the central administration!”
According to him, there are neither too many nor too few civil servants. “I can see that we need efficient public services, everywhere. But have we had an explosion of our civil servants? No!”, Considers Emmanuel Macron.
“On the other hand, we must go further on the reform of the State and the civil service to provide a better service to the French.”
In this respect, the President puts forward a beginning of reflection: “we must ask the question of the territorial organization which is confused and expensive, dilutes the responsibilities. It is clear that between the municipalities, intermunicipalities, departments and regions we have too strata and a problem of clarity of skills. These subjects must also be put on the table at the start of the school year”.
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