France’s new Prime Minister Michel Barnier has outlined the policy programme of his new government, seeking to shore up its fragile position just three weeks after taking office.In his first policy speech on Tuesday, Barnier said that France must slash its budget deficit and trim its tottering debt pile. He also vowed a combination of higher taxes and spending cuts.
After being nominated just a month ago, Barnier has the difficult challenge of filling a massive vacuum in the public coffers at a time when enacting changes will be difficult due to the division of parliament and internal strife within his minority government.
“Our enormous debt is the sword of Damocles hanging over us,” Barnier said to French MPs on Tuesday. He said that France’s deficit was weakening its position in Europe.
Our aim is to reduce the deficit to five percent [of GDP] in 2025 … on the right path to reach the three-percent ceiling in 2029,” two years later than previously planned, Barnier said, adding that two-thirds of the cuts would come from “reducing spending” but that the government would “ask big companies making large profits to contribute to the recovery”
Barnier informed the house that he would postpone local elections in the overseas territory of New Caledonia until the end of 2025 in addition to discussing the economy.
Earlier this year, there was violent upheaval in the semi-autonomous French Pacific territory between Indigenous Kanak people and French loyalists. After France decided to adopt reforms that would have allowed thousands more French residents who had lived in the region for ten years to vote, violence broke out in May.