There are only three weeks left to submit to Parliament its 2025 finance bill. The services of the new Prime Minister, Michel Barnier, transmitted on Thursday to the Finance Committees of the National Assembly and the Senate “the budget documents drawn up by the outgoing government” for the 2025 finance bill.
Consulted by BFM Business, these documents confirm a freeze in public spending at 492 billion euros, but a modified distribution of funds between the different missions. These limits “constitute a technical basis for the preparation of the budget resulting from the limits decided by the government that resigned in mid-August, but do not prejudge the modifications and adjustments that may be proposed” by the new government, the cover specifies.
Who are the big winning departments?
At the top of the podium, we find the mission. “Ecology, development and sustainable mobility” with a budget increase of almost 7.5% to 29.8 billion euros, or 2.1 billion euros more. This mission contributes to the implementation of several public policies linked to transport, energy, environmental protection and biodiversity, but also to the fight against pollution and the prevention of natural and technological risks.
It should be noted, however, that the appropriations allocated to the Green Fund, the government programme aimed at accelerating the ecological transition in local authorities, are being cut by almost 1.5 billion euros. Appropriations for “landscapes, water and biodiversity” are also being reduced, from 578 million to 441.3 million euros.
Funds allocated to Defense The budget has also been revised upwards to €50.5 billion (+6.9%, or €3.3 billion more) in a highly uncertain global geopolitical context. “Rearmament and the development of military investment are part of the international situation and the various threats that the country must face,” the document states.
The spending ceiling planned by the Ministry of the Armed Forces will therefore logically increase in 2025, in particular to ensure “the investments and equipment orders necessary for the modernisation of our armies”. The same applies to internal security, with special means to “speed up the processing of asylum applications and strengthen integration mechanisms for refugees from the war in Ukraine”.
Finally, other additional credits will be assigned to the modernization of the public justice service (+1%) but also for missions “Public authorities” (+9%) and “General and territorial administration of the State” (+7.1%).
Who are the ministries that are being demoted?
Among the losers of this budget forecast for 2025public development aid would see its budget cut by 19.4%, i.e. a fall of 1.3 billion euros, down to 5.4 billion euros. the “overseas” mission would also be reduced by 7.4%, to 2.5 billion.
The budget revised downwards for Work and employment (-6.9%, or 2.3 billion euros less). “France is experiencing the lowest unemployment rate recorded for more than forty years, close to 7% of the working population,” the government justifies in the document.
Michel Barnier is supposed to submit his 2025 finance bill to Parliament on 1 October, but he plans to postpone the submission until 9 October.
Source: BFM TV
