The public deficit will be “greater than 5%” of GDP in 2023, according to the Minister of Public Accounts

The minister, who invoked a "new economic context" to explain this slippage, however refused to confirm press information on franceinfo according to which the executive would now expect a deficit of around 5,6% of GDP .

“It is INSEE which publishes the figure for the public deficit for 2023,” said Thomas Cazenave, the day after meetings at the Elysée around Emmanuel Macron on public finances.

The National Statistics Institute is due to make this figure public on Tuesday.

At the beginning of March, the Minister of Economy and Finance Bruno Le Maire had already warned that the deficit would be "significantly beyond 4,9%" of GDP in 2023.

“It will be greater than 5%”, confirmed the Minister for Public Accounts, who put forward as reasons for these new estimates the economic “slowdown” of China, the war in Ukraine or even the difficulties of “European partners” like Germany which have “spillover” on France and weigh on growth, and therefore on tax revenues.

“This is a form of new deal for our public finances,” assured Mr. Cazenave.

“The State reacted immediately. We reduced State spending by 10 billion euros to adapt to this new international context,” he insisted.

While in these conditions the objective of a deficit reduced to 4,4% in 2024 appears difficult to maintain, the Minister responsible for Public Accounts limited himself to saying that the government would have "the opportunity to present (its) stability program, that is to say (its) forecasts to the European Commission".

“And we will naturally have to take into account the fact that for the year 2023, the deficit will have been higher than expected and above all, basically, take into account the new economic context,” declared Thomas Cazenave.

The minister did not wish to reveal what were the "savings options" envisaged by Bercy to straighten out the public accounts, assuring that he wanted to "take all the time necessary to construct" the 2025 budget "the best possible".

However, he "categorically" denied a possible government plan to affect housing assistance, including APL, paid to the most modest households.

“There is no reform project to eliminate or reduce public housing assistance. (...) I do not know where this information came from, but I categorically deny it,” said Mr. .Cazenave.

Illustrative image of the article via Depositphotos.com.