More than half a billion less for the France 2030 plan, nearly 800 million cut from Public Development Assistance (ODA) and 34 million less for an already frugal Sports budget… While he resisted censorship in the National Assembly, the executive formalized its savings promises before the Senate, which resumed budgetary debates since Wednesday. The government has promised more than 30 billion euros in savings on the “expenditure” section of the finance bill for 2025 to reduce the public deficit to 5.4% of GDP in 2025, compared to 6.1% planned for 2024.
At the Luxembourg Palace, the first wave came in the morning on the credits of the France 2030 plan, with 535 million euros less. This program is dedicated to the transformation and innovation of companies in key sectors such as health, space or research. The government’s amendment, adopted by the Senate and its majority alliance between the right and the centrists, has the effect of reducing the France 2030 budget to approximately 5.3 billion euros for 2025.
The Minister of the Economy Eric Lombard justified this effort by an “optimization of the cash flow of the operators” of the program, which must “participate in the effort to recover public finances”. He acknowledged that a “spreading out of the plan” will be necessary.
- Official development assistance
In the evening, another reduction in credits caused a lot of talk: the government had the Senate adopt a cut of 781 million euros on Public Development Assistance. The ODA budget already decreased, in the initial version of the budget presented by Michel Barnier, by 1.3 billion euros compared to the initial finance law for 2024. And additional savings of 641 million euros announced before censorship were still to be added. The new government finally went even further by increasing the effort to 781 million. “The decline is certain, but does not erase the investment effort made in recent years,” explained Jean-Noël Barrot. The Minister of Foreign Affairs recognized that “choices will be necessary” while promising to preserve certain sectors such as humanitarian aid for Gaza, Ukraine or Lebanon.
The entire left strongly criticized this choice, sometimes criticizing a “renunciation”, sometimes a “dramatic” decision. “As the crises intensify, France is moving away from its commitments,” regretted the leader of the environmentalist senators Guillaume Gontard. The right and the center supported the proposal, sometimes without enthusiasm. “We will vote for this amendment, but on a personal basis I will do so reluctantly,” lamented the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Cédric Perrin, reports Public Senate.
The senatorial majority, however, regretted a problem of “method”. Indeed, according to parliamentarians, the government’s revised proposal was sent to the Senate only a few minutes before the text was examined. The same criticism was made in the morning about the France 2030 Plan, the government amendment having been tabled during the night.
- The Sports budget saved
Ditto at the end of the evening: another cut of 34 million on the Sports budget and 89 million on youth, discovered at the last minute by the Senate, ulcerated the hemicycle just like several sports federations and even French stars of the Olympics , Léon Marchand and Teddy Riner in the lead. This time, the upper house did not follow: the Senate overwhelmingly rejected the government’s proposal, fearing to see sport become the “great sacrifice of budgetary and accounting causes” just a few months after the Olympic Games.
“The lack of transparency and coordination from the government is regrettable, not to say surprising and incomprehensible,” said the general budget rapporteur, Jean-François Husson (LR).
In addition, the Senate voted Thursday evening to remove the budgetary appropriations allocated to the deployment of the universal national service (SNU), against the advice of the government which continues to defend this flagship device of Emmanuel Macron despite massive opposition in Parliament. The senators, who consider its generalization “neither possible nor desirable”, very widely adopted an amendment constructed in a transpartisan manner to eliminate almost the entire SNU budget (100 million euros), choosing to redirect the majority of these credits (80 million euros) towards the Sports budget. “After five years of experimentation, the SNU does not provide sufficient added value compared to other youth engagement policies to justify its continued deployment,” said socialist rapporteur Eric Jeansannetas.