Brussels, 01/10/2014 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 1 October, the French government revealed a draft budget for 2015 which it will struggle to justify to its European partners.
Arguing that France had assumed “its responsibilities”, the country's finance minister, Michel Sapin, presented the draft French budget for 2015, which clarifies the budgetary savings aiming to reach a level of €50 billion by 2017, of which €21 billion will come in 2015 (€7.7 billion for the State, €3.7 billion for the local authorities and €9.6 billion for social security). Despite these cuts, the budgetary deficit will continue at 4.3% of GDP next year, following a level of 4.4% this year, with a return below the 3% mark set for 2017, rather than 2015 under the commitments taken at European level. This is due, amongst other things, to extremely low growth levels, expected to be around 0.4% this year, before recovering (1% in 2015, 1.7% in 2016 and 1.9% in 2017), and the low levels of inflation within the eurozone (0.3% according to provisional Eurostat figures). The French government will press all these arguments into service with its European partners to secure a third postponement of its objective for reducing its public deficit. To do so, it will have to demonstrate that it has made the structural efforts necessary, despite the poor economic conditions. It is worth noting that, in order to bring down the French public debt, which now exceeds €2000 billion (95.1% of GDP), the French government has announced that it is to shed €4 billion of assets. (MB)