The finance bill for 2024 arrives on Tuesday October 10 in the finance committee at the Palais Bourbon. A struggle looms, with already 2,800 amendments tabled. Elisabeth Borne could well put an end to this via the use of article 49.3 of the Constitution, during the examination of the text in the hemicycle.
Among the main issues that the executive’s copy will have to address: a borrowing rate which has exploded to 3.5%, making the debt even heavier. And this, despite a constant reduction in public deficits since the “whatever it takes” which had led the State to protect its economy in the short term with billions of euros.
The public finance balance had been reduced from -9% to -4.8 in 2022, which still remains well below the sacrosanct golden rule of Maastricht, which sets a limit of -3% for countries European signatories of the eponymous treaty.
Another concern, which could give rise to a snowball effect: the upcoming rating of French debt by Moody’s and Fitch in October, then Standard and Poor’s in December. In order to give guarantees of budgetary seriousness to these, Bruno Le Maire announced this Monday, September 9, that he would like a billion euros in additional savings, the objective being to reduce a sovereign debt which has already exceeded the symbolic barrier of 3,000 billion euros.
If Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s finally maintained France’s score in the spring, Fitch did not hesitate to lower its rating by one notch last April.