The State will have to tighten its belt. The French government recorded, on Thursday February 22, in a decree savings of ten billion euros, announced after a downward revision of its 2024 growth forecast, including two billion euros less for “ecology, sustainable development and 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, “cancels” a total of ten billion euros of budgeted expenditure in 29 areas, ranging from ecology to higher education, including justice, defense, territorial cohesion and public development assistance.
In the “ecology, sustainable development and mobility” programs, the one entitled “energy, climate and post-mining” is cut by one billion euros, while the “fund for accelerating the ecological transition in the territories” loses more than 400 million.
The plane in the “work and employment” category
Furthermore, the categories “work and employment” and “research and higher education” are affected respectively by 1.1 billion and 900 million euros in canceled credits. 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 prison administration some 118 million.
The government announced these “immediate” savings last Sunday to respect its budgetary commitment, amid fears of a downgrade in its financial rating.
Objective: to hold the public deficit to 4.4% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2024, facing a growth forecast lowered to 1% in a context of geopolitical tensions and economic slowdown, notably in China and Germany.
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 “probably be difficult to meet” the target of a deficit of 4.9% of GDP for 2023.