Michel Barnier brought together his government on Friday September 28 to agree on the road map that he will present Tuesday to the National Assembly, then tried to reassure, in an interview with a regional newspaper, on the tax options that he will retain in the 2025 budget in order to stem the slippage of public finances.
The government seminar lasted nearly four hours at the Matignon hotel. The objective was to prepare the general policy declaration that the Prime Minister will deliver next Tuesday and also to try to establish his authority, which has already been undermined by certain ministers. But the most delicate deadline will loom the following week with the presentation on October 9 of the next budget, while the government now forecasts a deficit exceeding 6% of GDP this year. “France’s situation is very serious on a budgetary and financial level”, it is “much more degraded than has been said”, he observed in an interview with Journal of Saône-et-Loireon the eve of a trip to Mâcon.
Before adding: “On the question of taxation, I said that I would protect from any tax increase those who are on the ground, who work, who produce.” Then consider “appealing, in an exceptional and temporary manner, to those who can contribute” to the effort to restore public finances.
An unprecedented context of “multi-cohabitation”
At Matignon during their seminar, the ministers worked in tables of eight on several themes (standard of living, territories and public services, economy and public finances, integration and immigration, ecological transition) to “identify strong ideas that can fuel the general policy statement” (DPG). They were joined by two new colleagues, Charlotte Parmentier-Lecocq (Horizons) appointed to People with Disabilities, and LR Jean-Louis Thiériot (Armies and veterans).
This allowed an official photo in the Matignon gardens, and not at the Elysée as usual, without President Emmanuel Macron, symbolically marking the distance between their two tenants, one from the right, the other from the center.
Michel Barnier will present his program next week in an unprecedented context of “multi-cohabitation”, according to the President of the Constitutional Council Laurent Fabius. Cohabitation with the president even if the two men refute this term, cohabitation in the National Assembly where he has no absolute majority even when adding together the elected representatives of the center and the right, and cohabitation within his government itself. It therefore seems unlikely that Michel Barnier will ask for a vote of confidence, as he may do at the end of his speech.
“Responsible before being popular”
The left has already planned to table a motion of censure at the end of next week, while the far right is threatening it, without saying when. Before these discussions with his ministers, the Prime Minister had received during the week all the union and employer forces who welcomed his “listening”, without detecting his intentions. He also brought together the political groups of his coalition around the same table on Wednesday, after several hiccups and the reframing of two EPR ministers (Together for the Republic, ex-Renaissance).
“We have to be responsible before we can be popular.” “We will not always be applauded but we must be respected as honest and serious people who are trying to get the job done,” participants in the government seminar were heard saying. But the Prime Minister’s phone call to Marine Le Pen, who did not appreciate that the new tenant of Bercy Antoine Armand refused to work with the RN, exasperated the presidential camp.
“Devastating”
A Renaissance executive even regrets his party’s participation in government. “We have Marine Le Pen pressing the button, the Prime Minister going to bed, it’s absolutely devastating.” The RN elected officials, like the elected officials of La France insoumise “are elected officials of the Republic”, “full stop”, wanted to close Michel Barnier in the “JSL”.
The new head of government also brought together in Matignon on Thursday the ministers Bruno Retailleau (LR, Interior) and Didier Migaud (ex-PS, Justice) who, barely named, had engaged in a showdown through the media. Didier Migaud said on Friday he was ready to work with Bruno Retailleau to see if it was necessary to “advance the legal arsenal” after the murder of the Philippine student while the suspect was awaiting deportation.
In addition to immigration, which has already fractured the former majority, several subjects will be difficult to arbitrate, such as proportional, to which the allied party Horizons and LR are not in favor, the text on the end of life, to which are opposed several conservative ministers. But on Friday at Matignon, several ministers showed themselves to be very concerned about the budgetary situation. “At 5 years, we are borrowing more expensively than Greece,” lamented one participant. The balance between spending cuts and additional tax revenue therefore promises to be very difficult to find, while France is the target of an excessive deficit procedure by the European Commission.