The Minister of Economy and Finance, Roland Lescure, confirmed this Sunday that the French Government maintains the objective of a public deficit of less than 3% of GDP by 2029, in compliance with its European commitments, and is confident that the draft State budget for 2026 will go ahead.
“We continue to work on the state budget. We are doing everything we can to pass a consensus budget by the end of 2025 (…) It is up to Parliament to ensure that the deficit remains below 5% in 2026, in line with our (European) commitments. This way we can reduce it below 3% in 2029; that is the ultimate goal,” Lescure told the newspaper Les Echos.
And he added: “We are demonstrating to our partners, the (European) Commission and the markets that we fulfill our commitments.”
The minister was thus alluding to the vote this week in the National Assembly on the Social Security budget, which went ahead with only 13 votes difference, and which demonstrated “that “France is learning, although sometimes with difficulties, the culture of commitment.”
The Minister of Public Accounts, Amélie de Montchalin, expressed the same sentiment, stating in an interview published today by the newspaper La Montagne that she still believes in the possibility that a parliamentary agreement can be reached to approve a budget before the end of the year.
The minister insisted that “an agreement is better than no agreement.” And “voting on a budget is not voting for or against the government, it is voting for the French people.”
The 70-day deadline for parliamentary review of the Finance Bill, stipulated by the Constitution, expires at midnight on December 23. If an agreement is not reached, the government could proceed by decree from this date, but is not obliged to do so.
When asked about the option of a special law, in case the budget is not approved on time, the minister reiterated that a special law “is not a budget” but rather “a temporary and unsatisfactory tool” for a kind of extension of the current ones.
Es “a tool that can be used as a last resort so that we can continue to meet our commitments to vital public services. It is a minimum service”, but in that case, the country “no longer invests”, does not launch projects, cannot, for example, “rearm itself additionally” or “support winegrowers in the emergency phase they are going through”, he explained.
De Montchalin attacked “the extremists” who have “nothing more to offer the French people than holding new elections”, “it is their obsession.”
The extreme right of the National Rally calls for dissolving Parliament and calling early legislative elections, while the radical left of La Francia Insumisa wants new presidential elections, but none of these options resolve “the specific problems facing the French people nor any of the specific problems facing our continent”, declared.
“The presidential elections are eighteen months away. Are we forced to endure this stagnation and ignore all the issues that, however, unite the majorities?” he asked.
