Reducing debt is an “imperative” for all parties, says Moscovici

In a thick report presented Monday morning, the financial magistrates of the Court of Auditors draw up a worrying assessment of the public accounts, likely to further suffer from post-legislative political uncertainty.

“Reducing our debt is an ardent obligation. It is neither left nor right: it is in the general interest!”, underlines Pierre Moscovici, in Monday's edition of Les Echos.

And the first president of the Court of Auditors insisted on France Inter: "Whoever governs France tomorrow, the next government will have to take control of this public finance situation." “An indebted state is a paralyzed state.”

“There are several ways” to reduce the public debt, “that’s democracy, but this imperative must be shared.” “I say it to all political forces, everyone has their own remedies, but we need a consensus to reduce the debt,” explains Pierre Moscovici to Les Echos.

France, against which the European Union intends to validate the opening of a procedure for excessive public deficit, must bring in 2027 within the European limit of 3% of GDP a public deficit which slipped to 5,5% last year .

On July 11, the Minister of Economy and Finance Bruno Le Maire explained that he had to "release 25 billion euros in savings" to "meet" public finance objectives.

“If we said 20 billion last week, and 25 billion now, it means there are 5 billion more,” reacted Pierre Moscovici on France Inter. “These 5 billion more probably correspond to a slippage,” notes the former Minister of Economy and Finance under François Hollande.

France must also reduce its debt, which rose to almost 3.160 billion euros at the end of March (or almost 111% of GDP, compared to 60% according to European criteria).

According to Pierre Moscovici, "if the repayment of the debt absorbs all room for maneuver, it will be impossible to invest in the future, in particular for the ecological transition", without however advocating an austerity policy: "I know that “it impoverishes, it dries up and it creates revolts,” he said on France Inter.

“We have two debts, a financial debt and a climate debt”, according to the former European Commissioner who recalls that next year the Court will devote a new annual report to the question of investment in the ecological transition.

“The climate constraint could push our public debt up by 5 to 7 points of GDP,” he estimates, adding that “the next budgetary trajectory must imperatively integrate the impacts of global warming, which is not the case today.”