Two days of less holiday? France is in arms but my sympathy is limited | Paul Taylor

Two days of less holiday? France is in arms but my sympathy is limited | Paul Taylor

Familiar PisThe rynce skint, but the French are in denial. To judge through the hills of hostility from the left and hard rights of the French Political Spectrum, you will think that the Prime Minister, François Bayrou, just got one Javier Milei-Style Chaininasaw In public services, discontinuations are announced to withdrawal or inflicting swingeing salary cuts.

But this is Bayrou’s suggestion that the French should stop Two of their 11 favorite public holidays – Easter and 8 May, the anniversary at the end of the World War in Europe – and work instead of increasing economic output and therefore economic income that is irritating anger.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, led the stubbornly left Tanya The LFOWED Party (LFI), accused the Centrist’s Prime Minister leading a “race in an economic, financial and social depth for the greater suffering of all”. Socialist Party leader Olivier Faure, describes suggestions as “a demolition plan for our French rally (RN), said to attack the contents of” a direct attack on our history “.

The perfected absence and the population on the right threatened to bear the government without trust in autumn moves, if the budget is placed in a hung parliament, As they do Soon the Bayrou, Michel Barniyier, last year.

As always the case, the sound and anger of the Echo Chamber of French political rioric is not in all the proportion of reality. Bayrou suggests a stand on Public Sector Pays, Pensions, Welfare benefits of patterns of covenants, with a modest flow of life standards for most people and a small tax increase. Better pensioners will pay more taxes, the poorest pay less. Steps that should reduce the disability of € 43.8bn to 4.6% of the economic output next year. Only spending the defense to increase, according to NATO French commitment, awarded European security conditions.

This is not a draconian austerity cleaning for a disability country by 5.8% of GDP last year – the highest in the euro area – and where the more reasonable measurements are more likely to be residued. National Loan has risen 113% of GDPhigher than any EU country outside Greece and Italy. But while their debt piles have fallen, French progress continues.

Publicly spending accounts for 56.5% of GDP in France, the second highest level of EU after Finland. Despite the purpose of the cent Emmanuel Emmanuel Macron to reduce tax burglary and more French work when he took office in 2017, a series of crises – the revolutionary crisis – the revolutionary Yellow Vests Against a carbon tax, the covid-19 pandemic and the effects of Russian war in Ukraine – prompts additional state spending. In 2023, French tax ratio GDP 43.8%, higher than average 33.9% of advanced economies.

The country has several layers of public administration, equal to have 5.8 million people – 20% of the total worker. Bayrou suggested that one of three retiring civil servants should not be replaced, drawing protests from universities representing teachers, health workers and police.

Perhaps the most speaking criticism came from the Philippe’s Édouard, first Prime Minister of Macron and a possibility centrist president candidation, Who says Bayrou package Contains non-structured reforms in failing public policies and only an emergency plan to prevent the damage without solving the problem.

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French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou presents 2026 budget planning to scrap the two public holidays Photo: Stefano Lorusso / Zuma Press Wire / Shutterstock

Axing is a pair of public holidays to go into the gap between the number of hours working per resolve In France compared to competitors such as Germany, Italy, Spain and UK – not to mention United States or South Korea. But the French is strong resistant to any attempt to remove social rights, regardless of economic conditions, as they show the constraint of the congregation at the time of retirement at the age of 64.

No that French workers actually work shorter than their European counterparts. But France has a small population of work due to a combination of early retirement, later enter the labor market, higher trust in unemployment and well-being.

“Markets and the EU looked at us,” Pierre Moscovici, the President of the French court of accounts and a former financial minister and the European Commissioner, said after a Annual report That warns that the country’s debt approached a point in tipping. “As demanded and difficult as it is, taking public control from 2026 should be for the debt,” he added.

France has long been enjoying indulgence in bond bond markets because of the ability to raise income and a financial crisis that focuses severe distress in the eurozone. But many credit rating agencies recently lowed the Sovereign French rating Due to a concern that the government is unable to create serious measures to cut disability without a majority of parliamentary.

The French people need to get true about their fiscal research before it descends in an acute crisis. So far there is a small sign of that reality of political class or population class. Left has changed repeatedly that the government should soak the rich and restore a treasure tax, even if it has a little symbolic tooth in disability. The populiist right argues that the state can save all the money it requires when it simply stops paying the benefits of immigrants. Those numbers do not add.

With many politicians urging voters to continue to believe that “public money” grows in trees or may borrowed unlimited value – Mélenchon reasoned In the past France should default on its debt – it is hard to have a reasonable budget debate.

The stage is scheduled for another battle with the PARLIAMENT WILLS, and maybe on the way. If the uncontrollable group of parties and conservative party supporting the bayrou cannot obtain his proposed storage of a real financial gathering of the National Pen Pen pen pen pen’s placement, due to 2027.

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