This is perhaps the most anticipated figure for the start of 2024. Tuesday morning, INSEE must reveal the extent of the public deficit in 2023, the difference between inflows and outflows from state coffers .
A percentage, initially planned at 4.9% of GDP, and which will be
“significantly”
higher according to the government.
The gap should be significant and could increase by 0.7 points to 5.6%, according to estimates revealed by the press last week.
However, reaching this level is not yet certain, just like the other data collected at Bercy, namely a deficit of 5.7% in 2024 (compared to 4.4% currently forecast) and 5.9% in 2025. (compared to 3.7%).
If the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire will himself comment on the INSEE publication Tuesday morning on RTL, the estimates have already caused a political storm on the budgetary management of the Macron years.
Criticisms are all the more intense since Emmanuel Macron, who never misses an opportunity to reiterate his European commitment, does not respect the rule of 3% of the public deficit decreed by the Treaty of Maastricht.
The latter may not have reached its peak of 9% of GDP in 2020, the year when the pandemic swept aside all dogmas, but it is set to rise again after two years of decline (-4.8% in 2021).
During the first years of his presidency, Emmanuel Macron nevertheless managed to control the state accounts, the public deficit even falling to 2.3% of GDP in 2018.
If we look a little further, the 2010s are marked by repeated efforts, regardless of the government in place, to reach this threshold of 3% after the economic and financial crisis of 2008-2009. - period during which the State had to print money.
If the public deficit is still at -6.9% in 2010, it will continually decline to reach the famous 3% in 2017, a year shared between François Hollande and Emmanuel Macron.