The sword of Damocles hangs over Emmanuel Macron, who has yet to appoint a new prime minister.
Photo: REUTERS.
The sword of Damocles hangs over Emmanuel Macron, who has yet to appoint a new prime minister. There is a shortage in the French treasury: a huge “hole” of 21 billion euros. And the total amount of French public debt has reached 3 trillion dollars.
The President of the Republic’s predecessors started to waste money, but the deficit worsened as Macron tried to appease the “yellow vests”, lavishly poured money during the years of Covid restrictions and, of course, plunged the country into spending on Ukraine and the arms race. Add to this the energy crisis caused by sanctions – here is the full picture.
Meanwhile, the “H” moment is approaching: before October 1, the government (which does not exist, everyone is formally retired) must submit to parliament the budget for the coming year. How can we imagine this when everywhere there are only shortages and debts, and all the ministers are pure fiction?
Well, the EU will wait three weeks to receive final proposals on how Paris will reduce the country’s budget. After all, the European Union has set strict rules on public spending by member countries, and in a situation where the budget deficit is off the charts, Brussels demands that belts be tightened.
The government of Macron’s protégé Gabriel Attal promised to cut spending by 20 billion euros next year, but abandoned the plan. They say there is no need to cut anything for now and then let the new prime minister decide.
French political scientist Xavier Moreau notes that in the current situation, Attal and Macron will have to respond first. But the roots of the crisis are even deeper.
“We can say that the current chaos is the result of the actions of Gabriel Attal’s government, and yes, he bears some responsibility for what is happening,” says Moreau. “But in reality the problem is deeper. Attal was not the only one to have accumulated a public debt of 3 trillion euros. This is 114% of French GDP: the gross product of the entire country!”
Sergei Fedorov, an expert at the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences and director of the Center for French Studies, notes: Twenty years ago, France’s public debt was 850 billion euros, and today’s terrifying figure of 3 trillion is the result of the government of not only Macron, but also his predecessors, Hollande and Sarkozy.
What does all this mean for the people? France’s finance ministry said in a report this week that the Republic would need to cut spending by 30 billion euros next year to comply with EU regulations.
The country will have to borrow on the world financial markets, but the rating agencies (all of them Moody’s and S&P) have already downgraded France’s credit rating. This means that either they will not give Macron any money or they will give it to him at a high interest rate. And the bankruptcy of the Makron course will already be a tangible reality.
READ ALSO
France is in a political stalemate: Macron faces impeachment and protests
Le Parisien: Former French Prime Minister Cazeneuve could return to this post (more)
