It is a drama played out in three acts. At the end of December, Parliament votes for a 2024 finance law which aims for a (very) modest recovery of French public finances, with a public deficit of 4.4% of GDP compared to 4.9% in 2023. A month and a half later, Bruno Le Maire, the Minister of Finance, appears on the 8 p.m. news to revise downwards the economic growth forecast for 2024 (to 1% compared to 1.4% previously anticipated) and cut 10 billion euros in the budgeted expenditure flow. In the process, Thomas Cazenave, his Minister for Public Accounts, mentions disappointing tax revenues and warns that it will be necessary to find 20 billion in new savings for the 2025 budget. Last Tuesday, finally, the INSEE ax fell: 2023, the public deficit has climbed to 5.5% of gross domestic product (GDP), much higher than the expected 4.9%.
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