Bruno Le Maire will announce on Sunday evening a major downward revision of growth for 2024

2024-02-17 14:00:16

By JDS

Published 42 minutes ago

The Minister of the Economy should formalize that French growth in 2024 will be closer to 0.9% than the rate of 1.4% forecast so far by Bercy. IAN LANGSDON / AFP

The Minister of the Economy should also announce a savings plan of at least “10 billion euros” during his speech on the 8 p.m. news on TF1.

The government is finally facing the facts: its economic growth forecast for 2024 no longer holds. Bruno Le Maire will be on the set of TF1’s 20 Hours on Sunday evening to announce the bitter news. From 1.4%, the 2024 gross domestic product (GDP) growth forecast in September by Bercy should be lowered to 0.9%. This is a figure similar to that of the European Commission, announced Thursday, and that of the Bank of France, and very close to the forecast of the International Monetary Fund (1%).

The Minister of the Economy “should in particular invoke the bad German situation to justify this revision, because it has repercussions on the entire euro zone”writes the newspaper L’Opinion this Saturday. A sluggish activity which can also be explained by the rapid increases in interest rates, orchestrated by central banks in order to break the inflationary spiral.

Also read: Slow growth, structural increase in unemployment… The French economy is still in the fog

Credit freezes

This downward revision of growth will not be painless for public finances. It will require reviewing the budgetary trajectory to keep the government’s commitment to lower the public deficit to 4.4% of GDP in 2024. Thus, after announcing the new pre vision of growth of Bercy, Bruno Le Maire should announce on Sunday evening a savings plan, amounting to at least “10 billion euros”written L’Opiniontaking up the estimate of Échos.

As we wrote a few days ago, these savings should go through credit freezes, decided by decrees. A blow that should affect all ministries without exception. Because the other possible option for the executive, that of going through a amending finance bill (PLFR), is today ruled out by the government, to avoid… ™having to resort to the unpopular article 49.3 with the deadline of the European elections.