French Prime Minister François Bairou today presented his program to recover the finances of a country subject to the “deadly risk of being overwhelmed by debt”, mainly providing for the freezing of government spending and the abolition of two holidays.

The prime minister said that “we are at a critical moment in our history” as France’s public deficit amounted to 5.8% of GDP in 2024, for a public debt representing almost 114% of GDP, third larger than Eurozone, after Greece and Italy.

The prime minister, head of a majority of a majority in the National Assembly and whose political room for maneuver are very limited, cited the particularly impressive example of Greece, which was under international guardianship in the 2010s, having already been affected by it.

“We must never forget the history of Greece,” he warned in his speech in Paris, adding that “every second, France’s debt is increased by 5,000 euros” and regretted the French that the French consider “normal for decades to pay for it.” “We have been addicted to public spending,” he said.

Bairou presented a program around two axes, one for debt reduction, the other to increase production in a context of sluggish growth, while saving military spending that must be increased by 6.7 billion euros in 2026 to tackle the continued increase in international tensions.

The program aims to gradually restore the deficit to 2.9% of GDP in 2029, “a limit after which, in a country like ours, debt is no longer increasing”.

To achieve this, “the state sets the first rule not to spend more euros in 2026 than in 2025, with the exception of gaining debt weight and additional costs on the budget of the Armed Forces”.

The state provides for the abolition of 3,000 jobs in the public sector starting in 2026, or even the “abolition of counterproductive services that disperse the energy of the state”. The pensions of many pensioners will not increase in 2026 and “social benefits as a whole will be maintained in 2026 at their 2025 level and there will be no exception”.

As Emmanuel Macron is often accused by his critics of being a president in the service of the rich, the center -right government provides for “a contribution of the richest”, which will be determined by MPs.

“The effort of the nation must be fair, that is to say, a few of those who have few and more of those who have more,” said Bairou, who also announced the strengthening of the fight against social fraud, that is, illegal actions to avoid social contributions or unlawful social contributions.

Regarding health spending, and as authorities have underlined the high consumption of drugs by the population for years, the prime minister provides for a 5 billion euro reduction in annual social spending, namely social benefits, goods and services, tax relief for social purposes.

In 2026, efforts for government spending, local collectives and social costs are expected to allow the savings of 21 billion euros to save, with the expected benefits of freezing social benefits and the income tax scale of $ 7 billion.

On the second axis of the effort to increase French production, the government leader proposes to abolish two days from the eleven official holidays: to be working “Easter Monday, which has no religious importance”, and May 8 He said, given the many holidays that characterize him.

This measure “will bring several billions to the state budget,” he said.

The president of the far -right National Alarm (RN) Zordan Bardela immediately denounced a “challenge”.

The abolition of the two holidays, which are just as important as our meaning as Easter Monday and May 8th is an attack on our history, our roots and against France of Labor. No RN member will accept this measure, “he wrote on the X platform.

For his part, the leader of the Radical Left Party, Jean-Luc Melanson, said that “Bayrou must leave” and that “injustices should no longer be accepted” in a post on the X platform.

In the attack is Marin Lepen, who threatened with a motion of censure: “After seven years of devastating waste, Emmanuel Macron and François Bayrou are unable to make real economies and present another account to the French: almost twenty billions of taxes. No savings from the cost of immigration, uncontrolled subsidies to energy sources, seven billion increase in our contribution to the EU, nothing about bureaucracy in hospitals or schools.
This government prefers to put them with the French, workers and retirees instead of chasing the waste. As for the revival of production, except for the abolition of certain rules in cooperation with the bodies, as RN proposes, everything is pious. If Bayrou does not revise his plan, we will submit a motion of censure. “