On Tuesday 14 January, during his general policy speech to the National Assembly, France’s new Prime Minister, François Bayrou, set the target public deficit at “5.4% of GDP” by 2025, on the basis of GDP growth forecasts for this year reduced from 1.1% to 0.9%.
Last November, Michel Barnier’s previous government presented a seven-year budgetary programme for consolidating France’s public finances, which forecast a public deficit of 5.0% of GDP in 2025, compared with 6.1% in...