|
Listen to article
|
Newly appointed French Prime Minister, Michel Barnier has on Sunday called for a “national effort” to completely reduce the country’s public-sector deficit while ruling out across-the-board tax rises.
A day after President Emmanuel Macron had appointed a new government, Barnier told the France 2 broadcaster that the government’s financial situation was “very serious”.
Read Also: France’s Macron Picks New PM In Historical Shift To Right
The situation required measures to rein in spending and raise income, he added — and high earners would have to “do their bit” to help France’s finances recover.
But there would be no income-tax increases for “people with low incomes, or wage earners, or the middle-income class”, he said.
“I am not going to increase the tax burden for all French people further, they already pay the highest taxes among all EU partners,” he said.
Barnier’s first major task will be to submit a 2025 budget plan addressing France’s financial situation next month.
France has been placed under a formal procedure for violating European Union budgetary rules.
Conservative Barnier is best known internationally for leading the European Union’s Brexit negotiations with the UK.
More recently, he has had the difficult job of submitting a cabinet for Macron’s approval that has the best chance of surviving a no-confidence motion in parliament.
Tough talks on the distribution of the 39 cabinet posts continued right up to Saturday’s official announcement, insiders said, with moments of high tension between the president and his prime minister.
Opposition politicians from the left have already announced they will challenge his government with a confidence motion.
In the July election, a left-wing bloc called the New Popular Front (NFP) won the most parliamentary seats of any political bloc, but not enough for an overall majority.
Macron argued that the left would be unable to muster enough support to form a government that would not immediately be brought down in parliament.
