Brussels, 26/03/2015 (Agence Europe) - France's public deficit and debt stood at 4.0% (4.1% in 2013) and 95% of GDP (92.3% in 2013) respectively, according to the official data published by the French statistical institute, INSEE, on Thursday 26 March.
The French deficit is “well below the target of 4.4% laid down in the amending finance bill of the end of the year”, the French Ministry of Finance announced in a press release (our translation). Compared to 2013, the expenditure of the French state is down by €3.3 billion, the deficit of the general sickness insurance regime has been trimmed by €2.2 billion and the spending of the local authorities has fallen by €4 billion. “This reduction in the deficit has been achieved without increasing the levies”, the French authorities stress.
“Getting on top of the public deficit in 2014 has opened up the prospect of reducing the public deficit in 2015, to around 3.8% of GDP. The government is fully confident in its ability to bring the public deficit below 3% by 2017, whilst supporting the recovery of activity and financing its priorities”, said the finance minister, Michel Sapin.
In its winter economic forecasts, the Commission anticipated a French deficit of 4.3% of GDP in 2014 and 4.1% in 2015. In early March, the Ecofin Council gave Paris an extra two years (from 2015 to 2017) to bring its deficit below the 3% of GDP mark in line with the following trajectory: 4% in 2015, 3.4% in 2016 and 2.8% in 2017. One of the conditions which went with this grace period was for further savings of between €3 and €4 billion to be presented in spring 2015.
It remains to be seen whether this condition will be upheld. We will have to wait and see if Eurostat validates these figures “later in April”, and then we will see how we will analyse the decision of the Ecofin Council, said Margaritis Schinas, spokesperson to the European Commission. If yes, that would be “good news for France and the eurozone”, he added. But as far as the Commission is concerned, France's commitment to present measures aiming for an additional structural budgetary effort of 0.2% in 2015 by June of this year still stands. (Mathieu Bion)