Who is responsible for France’s budgetary slippage? To answer this question, the Senate Finance Committee has interviewed several stakeholders in the matter in recent weeks, including the two former Prime Ministers Élisabeth Borne and Gabriel Attal.
© Nathan Laine/Bloomberg
– The former Minister of Finance, The former Minister of Finance, Bruno Le Maire, had placed the responsibility for the budgetary slippage on his successors.
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The public deficit is expected at 6.1% of GDP fin 2024far from the 4.4% initially planned. Why this budgetary slippage? And above all: because of whom? The Upper House seems to take this issue very seriously and has tasked its finance committee with hearing the main players in this issue, including the former Minister of Finance, Bruno Le Maire and the former Prime Ministers Élisabeth Borne and Gabriel Attal. As expected, all defended their record and have often passed the buck in recent weeks, relays BFMTV.
«Have alerts at the highest level been issued and if so when?» want to know the socialist president of the Senate Finance Committee, Claude Raynal, as well as the rapporteur Les Républicains Jean-François Husson. Both presented their findings at a press conference on November 19. “To the general feeling of collective denial about the situation of public finances, is now added a feeling of irresponsibility of those who were then in government», declared Jean-François Husson. “The government actually knew critical condition of our public finances from December 2023. In our opinion, he should have reacted vigorously. But he didn’t», added Claude Raynal.
Also read: Budgetary slippage: facing the Senate, Bruno Le Maire accepts and rejects any “concealment”
Gabriel Attal denounces a “scandalous political and media trial”
Faced with the commission, the former officials defended themselves from any concealment. Bruno Le Maire had placed the responsibility on his successors, accusing the Barnier government of not having implemented the recovery measures recommended by the resigning team. These measures, he asserts, would have made it possible to “contain the deficit for 2024 to 5.5% without tax increases». «With friends like that, no need for enemies»Claude Raynal then reacted.
The ex-tenants of Matignon had made, for their part, quite different comments, Gabriel Attal defending the action of Bruno Le Maire whom he considers the victim of a “scandalous political and media trial“. Élisabeth Borne, on the other hand, had admitted to having been “alerted» on the risk of budgetary slippage from December 2023, but “without us being able, at that time, to know what the order of magnitude was».
The Senate points to the responsibility of Emmanuel Macron
For the two senators, the President of the Republic himself must bear part of the responsibility for this situation. According to them, many months have indeed been “lost» in the restoration of accounts, due to reshuffles and dissolution. In the wake of the report delivered by the Senate Finance Committee, the main defendants organized a joint press conference where they castigated, through the voice of Bruno Le Maire, a “indictment of political opponents riddled with lies».
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1. Can you provide more information on the expected public deficit in France in 2024 and how it has changed compared to initial expectations?
2. Who is primarily responsible for this budgetary slippage according to the Senate Finance Committee?
3. What specific actions did the former government take that may have contributed to the budgetary slippage?
4. Why do you think the former government decided not to implement certain recovery measures that could have helped contain the deficit?
5. Do you think it is fair to blame the former government for the current budgetary issues or should more emphasis be placed on the current government’s handling of the situation?
6. How important are political considerations in the management of public finances and budgeting processes?
