France’s minority government set to present make-or-break austerity budget

Paris: France’s government is to deliver its 2025 budget on Thursday with plans for 60 billion euros ($65.68 billion) worth of tax hikes and spending cuts to tackle a spiralling fiscal deficit.

Prime Minister Michel Barnier’s new government is under increasing pressure from financial markets and France’s European Union partners to take action after tax revenues fell far short of expectations this year and spending exceeded them.

But the budget squeeze, equivalent to two points of national output, has to be carefully calibrated to placate opposition parties, who could not only veto the budget bill but also band together and topple the government with a no-confidence motion.

Lacking a majority by a sizeable margin, Barnier and his allies in President Emmanuel Macron’s camp will have little choice but to accept numerous concessions to get the budget bill passed, which is unlikely before mid to late December.

The far-right National Rally, whose tacit support Barnier needs to survive any no-confidence motion, has already helped derail a government proposal to postpone a pension increase by six months to save 4 billion euros.

Members of Macron’s party are also loathe to see the president’s legacy of tax-cutting go up in smoke, with his former prime minister Gabriel Attal saying on Wednesday: “The budget is light on reforms and too heavy on taxes.”

Barnier has said he will spare the middle class and instead target big companies with a temporary surtax and people earning over half a million euros per year.

All taxpayers will nonetheless be hit by plans to restore a levy on electricity consumption to where it was before an emergency reduction during the 2022-2023 energy price crisis.

The government has said the budget bill will reduce the public deficit to 5% of gross domestic product (GDP) next year from 6.1% this year – higher than almost all other European countries – as a first step towards bringing the shortfall into line with an EU limit of 3% in 2029.

While tax hikes will make up one third of the 60 billion euro budget squeeze, the rest will come from spending cuts, with 20 billion cutting across France’s ministries and the rest hitting separate spending on welfare, health, pension and local government budgets.

France’s borrowing costs surged after Macron called a snap parliamentary election and his centrist party then lost to a left-wing alliance. Financial markets are likely to pay close attention to whether the budget can get through parliament without being watered down too much.

The budget will also face scrutiny from the European Commission, which has subjected France to an excessive deficit procedure for falling foul of the EU’s fiscal rules.