The issue was decided in recent days. Despite the serious deviation of public accounts and pressure from some deputies, Prime Minister Michel Barnier has given up approving a corrective finance law before the end of the year. Too complicated politically and not absolutely essential financially, according to the executive. The information, revealed by Opinion, was confirmed, on Saturday, October 5, at World.
On paper, the adoption of a corrective finance law, also called the “collective budget,” seemed like a common-sense solution to the growing public deficit. Laws of this type are the only ones that allow the state budget voted in December to be significantly modified during the year.
In February, when the first signs showed that the 2024 budget would be very difficult to maintain, Bruno Le Maire, then Minister of the Economy, campaigned for such a law to be passed before the summer. The President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, rejected his proposal so as not to overshadow the European election campaign in June with bad news about public accounts. Bruno Le Maire, a faithful soldier, did not resign and tried to correct the situation by other means. After a decree that canceled 10 billion euros of credits in February, other expenses worth 16.5 billion euros were provisionally frozen in July.
A growing public deficit
When Michel Barnier arrived in Matignon on September 5, the question was posed even more sharply. While the public deficit increases day after day and runs the risk of reaching, throughout the entire year, 6.1% of the gross domestic product (GDP) instead of decreasing as expected, it seemed logical to prepare a collective budget . It would have made it possible to forcefully curb spending, definitively canceling several billion euros of credits. It would also have been an opportunity to increase, starting in 2024, certain taxes, such as the tax on the profits of electrical companies, or tax share buybacks, without waiting until 2025. Finally, an amending law of this type would have offered Michel Barnier the possibility of immediately realizing his wish to reorient economic and budgetary policy.
In recent weeks, many officials have pressured the new prime minister to choose this option. Including Bruno Le Maire again. “We cannot wait until 2025,” It was also advocated by one of his followers, the Macronist deputy for the Lower Rhine, Charles Sitzenstuhl. Eric Coquerel (La France insoumise), president of the finance committee of the National Assembly, also demanded that emergency budget decisions go through a debate in Parliament and not by decrees or orders.
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