France: Bayrou shock plan: “It’s our moment of truth”

François Bayrou unveiled on Tuesday a draconian budget cure of 43.8 billion euros for 2026, with a freezing of social benefits and pensions and the abolition of two holidays, immediately criticized by the oppositions which threaten him with censorship.

“This is our moment of truth,” the Prime Minister said at the outset, the serious mine, at a press conference in the presence of most members of his government.

For months, the centrist leader who has made the fight against deficits and the debt his political DNA has multiplied the images sketching a dark table of public finances to, he says, alert the French.

“Over-indebtedness”, which obliges the country to “borrow every month to pay for pensions or pay the salaries of civil servants”, “is a curse that has no way out”, he insisted on Tuesday, stressing that “every second, France’s debt increases by 5000 euros”.

In this context, and despite a fractured political landscape which presages an almost impossible mission to have the budgets for 2026 in the fall adopted in the fall, François Bayrou presented “a plan to say stop on debt and a plan to say in front of production”.

For the first, the objective is to bring the deficit back to 4.6% of GDP next year, against 5.8% in 2024. All in an flammable international context, between trade tensions and military, which led Emmanuel Macron to ask on Sunday an additional effort of 3.5 billion euros in 2026 for the defense.

As a result, the effort to be made will reach 43.8 billion next year instead of the 40 initially mentioned, the head of government announced.

And the potion may appear bitter.

The state, to “show the example”, will freeze its expenses in 2026 at 2025, “with the exception of the increase in the debt burden and additional expenses for the armies’ budget,” said François Bayrou. He also set up “a non-replacement rule of one in three officials retired”, while 5.3 billion savings are requested from local authorities.

In the same way, he decided on a “white year” for all social benefits, including retirement pensions, that is to say that they will be so frozen and will not be revalued in terms of inflation. Retirees will also see their tax exemption for professional expenses.

Same freezing for the scales of income tax and the generalized social contribution – which will increase these levies, even though the tax increase is supposed to be a red line for most parties that support the government.

The plan also provides for the doubling of the annual deductible on reimbursements of drugs, and a hardening of the status of long -term conditions.

At the same time, the Prime Minister also proposed a measure which already makes great noise: the abolition of two holidays, by “example” “Monday of Easter” and “8-May”, to boost the activity which he deems insufficient in France.

For the same purpose, he will offer the social partners to open new negotiations on unemployment insurance and labor law.

François Bayrou assured that he “decided” to involve “everyone”.

Without a majority, he admitted that he was “at the mercy of the oppositions”, which, if they join their voices from the left to the far right, can make him fall as was the case in December, precisely on budgetary texts, for his predecessor Michel Barnier. But he ensured that he wanted to “change things”, “whatever the risk” of censorship.

However, the first reactions suggest an epic parliamentary battle.

The abolition of two holidays is a “provocation” and “a direct attack on our history, against our roots, and against France of work,” protested the president of the National Rally Jordan Bardella. “If François Bayrou does not see his copy again, we will censor him,” warned Marine Le Pen.

“Bayrou declares social war,” launched, at the other end of the political spectrum, the head of the deputies La France Insoumise Mathilde Panot, while his leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon urged to “make Bayrou away”.

The left wishes to obtain a tax inspired by the French economist Gabriel Zucman on the “ultra-rich”, by taking 2% per year from their heritage, for an annual yield of 20 billion euros.

François Bayrou announced a “solidarity contribution for” the highest incomes “with still vague contours, which we do not know if it will be enough to guarantee the non -censorship of socialist troops.

If LFI and the RN decide to overthrow the government, its fate will depend in fact on the PS.

“The budgetary proposals made by François Bayrou are unacceptable for us,” reacted the socialist deputy Philippe Brun on Tuesday, calling on the Prime Minister to “considerably amend his copy” if he “wants to save his budget”.