US EditionFrance: Opposition Slams PM Bayrou’s Budget Cut Plan
FRANCE, JUL 16 – Bayrou’s 2026 budget plan demands €44 billion in cuts including pension and salary freezes plus scrapping two public holidays to reduce deficit and public debt, amid rising political opposition.
- French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou presented the 2026 budget plan on July 15, 2025, in Paris, aiming to address the national debt.
- Bayrou invoked Greece's recent debt crisis as a warning and argued that France faces a "mortal danger" due to uncontrolled public spending and external threats.
- He proposed austerity measures including €43.8 billion in cuts, freezing pensions at 2025 levels, reducing local authority spending by €5.3 billion, scrapping two public holidays, and boosting defense spending.
- Bayrou highlighted the alarming pace at which France's debt is increasing—by €5,000 every moment—while the country’s public debt has climbed to 114% of GDP, with annual debt servicing costs reaching €100 billion.
- The plan sparked strong opposition from the National Rally and the left, with threats of no-confidence motions, reflecting political challenges to implementing austerity amid social unrest.
60 Articles
60 Articles
It takes 44 billion to reduce the deficit: I work also in the holidays and cuts to health care. The opposition ready to drop the government. Macron: "If anyone has better ideas, we will welcome them."
For the socialists, the draft budget presented on Tuesday by François Bayrou deserves the censorship of the government. They announce that they will present their own proposals in September.
Cuts to social spending (as well as to two days of national holidays), presented immediately after Emmanuel Macron's magnanimous statements on the need to increase expenditure on arms. Yet another French executive prepares for explosive months and the recipe of Prime Minister François Bayrou is destined to provoke an earthquake, inside and outside the National Assembly. In fact, in recent hours, the intervention plan to save public accounts has …
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