Bruno Le Maire: the public deficit at 6.1% of GDP in 2024 is “the choice of the current government”

BERTRAND GUAY AFP Finally!!!

Former Minister of Economy and Finance Bruno Le Maire said on Thursday that the slippage of France's public deficit to 6.1% of GDP in 2024 was “the government's choice current”, refuting any “fault” or “concealment” on the situation of the public accounts. 

“When I am told that the deficit in 2024 will be at 6.1% is the choice of the current government. And I will provide all the evidence that we could have in 2024, with more rigorous recovery measures, a deficit of around 5.5%. I therefore formally contest this figure of 6.1%,” declared Mr. Le Maire, explaining himself before the Senate Finance Committee as part of a fact-finding mission on the drift in finances public. 

According to the end-of-management finance bill presented to the Council of Ministers on Wednesday, the public deficit will slip to 6.1% of GDP in 2024. It was forecast at 4.4% in the initial finance bill presented in the fall of 2023, then raised to 5.1% in the spring by the previous government, in which Mr. Le Maire led Bercy for more than seven years. 

“There was no fault, no concealment, no desire to deceive. There was fundamentally a serious technical error in assessing revenue for which we are paying the price,” explained the former finance minister, who left to teach in Lausanne. 

Revenue had initially been estimated at 41.5 billion euros higher than it will actually be in 2024, while growth was revised down by 1.4% to 1.1%. 

1. Le Maire insisted on the fact that “never, at any time, neither the cabinet, nor a fortiori the minister, say a word about the evaluation of revenues”, which is a “technical” exercise. There is “total watertightness”, he added. “The minister does not pronounce. The politician does not pronounce, and besides, it is perhaps a good thing, because if the politician started to get involved in the evaluation of revenues, we would cry manipulation.”

He also stressed that the previous government had spent massively to support households and businesses during successive crises, before initiating savings measures in the face of the increase in French public debt. The former minister said he had even “resisted” some 400 billion in additional spending that was then demanded by parliamentarians from all sides. 

 

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