The Court of Auditors "concerned" by the state of public finances

"The outlook for 2023 is even more degraded" than in 2022, a year marked by the war in Ukraine and the energy shock, he said, presenting his wishes for the new year.

“Our debt and deficit levels are very high” and “the debt financing environment has deteriorated” with soaring interest rates, he noted.

“This degraded situation worries me”, a concern being at a “fairly high” level, indicated the former Minister of the Economy.

In this context, the government's growth forecast - 1% for 2023 after an anticipation of 2,7% the previous year - "remains high", higher than the consensus of economists, even if, according to Pierre Moscovici, "the indicators advanced are not as negative as anticipated".

To sustainably reduce the debt (over 110% of GDP) and the public deficit (expected at 5% of GDP at the end of 2022), the Minister of Economy and Finance, Bruno Le Maire, announced in January the organization from this year of annual "reviews" of public expenditure. The government hopes to bring the public deficit back below the European limit of 3% of GDP in 2027.

This exercise of annual reviews is "indispensable", insisted Pierre Moscovici to journalists, while France is one of the countries in the euro zone whose "public finance situation is among the most degraded" and one of the leaders in terms of public spending (around 57% of GDP).

However, he insisted on the need to set "an explicit timetable, method and objectives".