A surprising confession. Amid rising home loan rates, Bruno Le Maire said he shares the dismay of some French people who can no longer borrow to buy an apartment or a house.
“I’ll tell you, I didn’t buy, I bite my fingers every day,” explained the Minister of Economy this Wednesday in the columns of Parisianin response to a reader’s question.
A house in the Basque Country bought in 2000
The number of real estate loans granted has been reduced by half in just one year, according to figures from the Housing Credit Observatory. What is particularly at stake is the rise in property rates, which could exceed 5% by the end of the year.
However, the asset declaration of the Bercy tenant published on the website of the High Authority for Public Transparency (HATVP) indicates that he has owned a house in the Basque Country since 2000, the purchase of which was worth 600,000 euros. That year the rates were between 5 and 5.5%, quite close to what we know today.
Bruno Le Maire also has a PEL worth 64,088 euros, a financial tool that will supposedly facilitate access to a real estate loan.
“Many prices for pasta packages”
Finally, whoever has been in government since 2017 has a particularly comfortable income. Between the election of Emmanuel Macron and the month of June 2022 (date of his last known income), Bruno Le Maire earned more than 700,000 euros, including his rights and his salary as a minister, according to his statement to the HATVP.
This is not the first time that Enarque highlights his daily life in interviews. On May 20, on France 2, Bruno Le Maire spoke again about the rise in food prices, which have increased by almost 20% in two years.
“I try to be fair, to be careful that prices go down for the consumer. As I have a large family, I have four children to feed,” said the minister, claiming to know “many prices for pasta packages.”
“Real life, I do know it”
In the process, some members of the opposition took advantage of this sequence. “Bruno Le Maire, 10,000 euros net per month, suffers from the price of pasta. What a disconnect,” LFI deputy Damien Maudet lamented in a tweet.
The RN parliamentarian Julien Odoul feels the same, who accused Bruno Le Maire of “wanting to make us believe that he is at the doors of the food bank” on X (ex Twitter).
Three days later, the fifty-year-old vigorously defended himself on RTL. “I do know real life,” she said. “Of course not, a minister’s monthly ends are not the same as those of someone who receives 1,200, 1,300 euros a month,” the leader admitted, however.
Before continuing: “I do my shopping, I pay for my food, and that is normal. (…) I do not occupy my official accommodation, I pay the rent. These are things that deserve to be addressed.”
To try to loosen control over real estate rates, Bruno Le Maire wants to recover subsidized loans and could increase the maximum borrowing rate.
Source: BFM TV
