Invited to the set of BFMTV this Tuesday, Bruno Le Maire announced that he wanted to “accelerate the deleveraging of France.” For the Minister of Economy, Finance and Industrial and Digital Sovereignty, the objective is to “save money where it is least useful” to “maintain room for maneuver where it is effective”.
“Before the presidential elections, the French Treasury borrowed to finance its debt at 0%. At the time of the elections, we were around 1%. Today, we are at 3%. We take 200 base points and 2 points of interest. in one year One additional interest rate point means, by 2027, 15 billion euros of additional charges on the French public debt “, explains Bruno Le Maire.
“I don’t feel like throwing money out the window”
The economy minister will present France’s annual stability program on Thursday, which will include prospects for deficit reduction and debt reduction.
“Financial conditions have changed and I have no desire to throw money away because it is taxpayer money. Turning down the money for the debt burden just because interest rates have gone up, that’s all the money that could have gone to hospitals, schools, nurseries, universities, green investments, the decarbonization of our economy… I’d rather spend public money to invest in public services than in the debt burden,” he said.
As a reminder, continued growth in France (+2.6%) has made it possible to reduce public debt to 111.6% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2022 compared to 112.9% at the end of 2021. But public debt It has increased massively with the health crisis, inflation, then the war in Ukraine, and has increased in absolute value by 126.4 billion euros compared to 2021, reaching 2.95 billion euros compared to 2.823 billion a year earlier, detailed Insee. at the end of March.
Source: BFM TV
