From balance in 1970 to the explosion from the covid … visualize the evolution of France’s public deficit for 50 years

François Bayrou unveils his tracks on Tuesday afternoon to achieve 40 billion savings in the next budget. Nevertheless, in order to reduce the extent of the degradation of public finances for several decades. Therefore,

A big oral before the holidays. Nevertheless, During a highly anticipated press conference on Tuesday. For example, July 15, François Bayrou will prepare the spirits for a perilous budget 2026, which will have at least 40 billion savings, according to government declarations since spring. Therefore, “We are going to save money, more than we have ever done”he warned on LCI on Thursday evening. This is for the Prime Minister. who has made control of public accounts one of his totems since his beginnings in politics, to try to influence the slip of public finances since the mid -1970s.

The French public accounts have been in red half a century. More specifically. they are in deficit, that is to say that the expenses of public administrations in the broad sense (the State, but also local authorities, social security administrations and various central administration organizations) balance 1970 explosion covid … are greater than their revenue. The last surplus budget of France dates back to the year 1974. when the first oil shock of 1973 had not yet fully hit the tricolor economy.

The 1980s were those of stabilization of the deficit between 2% and 3% of GDP (gross domestic product), with a brief exceeding of 3% (3.2% in 1986). This threshold. set as a limit by the criteria of Maastricht established in 1992, was cheerfully crossed the following year in France, with a recession and unemployment which reaches 10% of the active population. Revenue collapses, social spending is soaring and the public deficit reaches 6.4% of GDP. The situation improves to the turn of the millennium, with a deficit of 1.3% in 2000, due to a drop in unemployment and tonic growth, before deteriorating again.

Over balance 1970 explosion covid … the following twenty-five years, the deficit will have been less than or equal to 3% of GDP only five times (2001, 2006, 2007, 2018, 2019). Apart from these years. France derogates from the criteria of Maastricht, with a few years of major budgetary scarcity, as in 2009 (7.4%) and 2010 (7.2%). in the aftermath of the banking and financial crisis, which turns into a public finance crisis for many economies from all over the world.

The COVVI-19 also undermines the meager budgetary progress before 2020: that year, marked by two generalized confinements, the public deficit had reached an unprecedented level, at 8.9% of GDP, due to the emergency measures put in place within the framework of “whatever it costs”. La France peine depuis à s’en remettre, avec des déficits de 6,6% en 2021, 4,7% en 2022, 5,4% en 2023 et 5,8% en 2024.

balance 1970 explosion covid …

For the year 2025, the government intends to reduce the deficit to 5.4% of GDP and François Bayrou wants to go below 5% in 2026, to 4.6%. The objective is ambitious. but it will obviously not allow to go back in budgetary excess and, thus, to reduce what the deficits supply each year: public debt. It reached, at the end of the first quarter of 2025, 114% of GDP.