Always important expenses anyway. The government provides for a total of public spending in 2026 of 1,722 billion euros, or 29 billion more than the estimation of these expenses for the year 2025, according to a document consulted on Wednesday by AFP. According to the government, this level corresponds to “an effort to moderate the expenditure of the order of 30 billion euros”, because public spending “naturally increases due, in particular, the dynamics of health expenditure or the increase in the load of debt”.
Increase in defense
Public spending (which brings together the spending of the State and its operators, social security and local authorities) would have been established at around 1,752 billion euros “effortlessly on our part and by integrating the new defense effort” announced by Emmanuel Macron on Sunday, specifies the document, entitled “Ceiling of expenditure of the finance bill for 2026”.
This document, which provides for the budget envelope which will be awarded to each “mission” of the State next year, notably envisages an increase in spending compared to 2025 of 6.7 billion euros for the Defense mission, of 400 million for “security” and 200 million for justice and school education.
On the other hand, he rely on a decrease of 1.7 billion euros for the mission “Solidarity, integration and equal opportunities” and 1.3 billion euros for the mission “Work, employment and administration of social ministries”.
Revalued Ecology
The government also plans to decrease 900 million euros for the mission “territorial cohesion”, 700 million for “public development aid” and 200 million for “agriculture, food, forest and rural affairs”. The mission “Sustainable ecology, development and mobility”, the perimeter of which will evolve in 2026, will be upgraded by 600 million euros. For the other missions, the envelopes planned are close to stability.
The government also intends to involve local authorities “in the rectification effort of public accounts up to 5.3 billion euros. “This budget (…) is, basically, a budget for slowing down our expenses,” reacted the Minister of Public Accounts Amélie de Montchalin on France 2 on Wednesday. “Public spending (…) should have increased by 60 billion what we offer to the French, is that they only increase by 30 billion,” she explained.
