The draft budget will be presented on Thursday October 10 to the Council of Ministers. A high-flying exercise for Michel Barnier who announced his ambition to reduce public deficits to 5% in 2025 and is seeking 60 billion euros to achieve this. But the budgetary choices envisaged by the Prime Minister, in particular tax increases, have attracted the wrath of deputies from the presidential camp, Gabriel Attal and Gérald Darmanin in the lead… Michel Barnier is under pressure.
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A right-wing Prime Minister who defends tax increases is “ paradoxical », pointed out Gerald Darmanin in an interview with Echoes… Emmanuel Macron’s Minister of Public Accounts in 2017, it was he who launched the offensive against the proposals of Michel Barnier accused of wanting a “ fiscal shock » and who went so far as to threaten not to vote on the revenue part of the budget, because raising taxes calls into question the basis of the economic policy pursued for seven years.
Companies will put their hands in their pockets
Two days before the presentation of the 2025 budget, Matignon is refining his copy with one objective: finding 60 billion euros to straighten out public finances. Reductions in the number of civil servants, merger of public services, surcharge for the wealthiest households, the government is rolling out its measures. And businesses should not escape it, at the risk for some of hindering France’s competitiveness and growth. But what is it really?
On the revenue side, this is one of the ways to bring 8 billion euros into the state coffers next year: taxing the profits of 300 companies which generate more than 1 billion euros in turnover. business. Philippe Crevel, economist and director of the Circle of Savings, considers the measure bearable, joined by Nicolas Feldmannfrom the economic service, considers the measure bearable: “ The proposed tax increases do not call into question competitiveness, we are looking at an increase in corporate tax. Additionally, it is stated that it is temporary. »
The potion could be more painful for small businesses. There is no question for them of increasing their taxes, but rather of reviewing certain aid and reductions in charges put in place by Emmanuel Macron… Enough to worry Laurent Munerot, vice-president of the U2P.. the Business Union local, at Nicolas’ microphone Feldmann. “ If we come back to the reductions in charges on low wages, that means a cost for the company higher than that which currently exists, so behind that means a lack of competitiveness. »
Make savings at the risk of slowing down activity… this is the warning from the Macronists to the Barnier government which is holding its course: and banking on growth of a little more than 1% next year to reduce the deficit.
Gabriel Attal was also stung. Especially when Michel Barnier told him in the Assembly: “ I will be very attentive to your proposals for additional savings to deal with the deficit that I found when I arrived “… just to bring him back to his responsibility, before calming things down by recognizing that he needed Gabriel Attal who heads the Ensemble group, the most important of his parliamentary base and by saying he was open to other solutions only taxes to bring in the billions.
Solutions: putting an end to the 35-hour week, for Gérald Darmanin, implementing unemployment insurance reform, for Gabriel Attal, points Valérie Gasfrom the RFI political service. Discussions are likely to be lively between Michel Barnier and the Macronist deputies, during the group’s meeting which the Prime Minister will attend on Tuesday October 8.
A first motion of censure
It had become almost a habit for his predecessors Elisabeth Borne and Gabriel Attal, but the first motion of censure to face is always a special moment that Michel Barnier will discover this Tuesday, after the group meeting.
The Prime Minister has very little chance of seeing his government be overthrown, even if some uncertainties persist as to the total number of votes that the text tabled by the New Popular Front will gather, reports Aurélien Devernoix of the political service.
In the columns of The Sunday Tribunethe Prime Minister acknowledged being “in the hands of Parliament” but recalled that his majority, although relative, remains “ the most important of the Assembly “. This majority must still be completely acquired by him, and nothing is less certain: in the ranks of Macronist deputies, some – as we have seen – do not hide their hostility to the tax increase plan concocted by the head of government. To the point of censoring Michel Barnier? He doesn’t believe it: “ I trust my allies » he reassures himself.
In the current state of affairs, only one scenario can actually cause its downfall and the Prime Minister knows it very well: “the conjunction of the left and the National Rally.” However, the RN has announced that it will not vote for censorship. The motion should therefore have difficulty gathering the 289 votes necessary: there will be the 192 from the NFP and undoubtedly some votes from the independents… Mystery about the Union of Rights for the Republic ofEric Ciotti. The former boss of the Republicans does not in fact refrain from resorting to censorship, even if it is unlikely that he would support a text coming from the left.