The government makes 10 billion euros in budget cuts, ecology a collateral victim

2024-02-22 09:44:15

By Le Figaro with AFP

Published 4 hours ago, Updated 1 hour ago

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As expected, the executive published a decree to ratify the state diet. This will continue until the summer since the government has set itself the objective of finding 12 billion euros in additional savings.

The French government recorded savings of ten billion euros in a decree on Thursday, announced after a downward revision of the 2024 growth forecast, including two billion fewer euros for programs “ecology, development and sustainable mobility”. The text, published in the Official Journal and signed by Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire and the Minister for Public Accounts Thomas Cazenave, “cancel” in total ten billion euros of budgeted expenditure in 29 areas, ranging from ecology to higher education, including justice, defense, cohesion territories and public development assistance.

In the programs “sustainable ecology, development and mobility”the one entitled “Energy, climate and post-mining” is cut by a billion euros, while the “fund for accelerating the ecological transition in the territories” loses more than 400 million. Furthermore, the categories “work and employment” et “research and higher education” are concerned respectively by 1.1 billion and 900 million euros of canceled credits.

Also read: After Attal’s announcements, NGOs’ discontent over the end of the French pesticide measurement indicator

Growth forecast lowered

Public development aid is cut by 740 million euros, assistance with access to housing loses 300 million euros, the national police 134 million euros and the public administration loses ©prisoners some 118 million. The government announced these savings last Sunday «immédiates» to respect its budgetary commitment, against a backdrop of fear of a deterioration of its financial rating. Objective: keep the public deficit at 4.4% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2024, facing a growth forecast lowered to 1% in a context of geopolitical tensions and slowdown economically, notably in China and Germany.

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This new tightening of the screws adds to the 16 billion savings already included in the French budget for 2024, mainly coming from the removal of the energy shield. A sign of the difficult budgetary equation facing the executive, a source at the French Ministry of the Economy reported on Monday that it would be “probably hard to hold on†the objective of a deficit of 4.9% of GDP for 2023.

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