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“That lowering taxes would contribute to worsening public finances, is an accounting vision [of the court of auditors] that doesn’t correspond to economic reality,” Le Maire told reporters over the phone on Monday.
Le Maire also warned against the risk of “weaponizing” the debate on France’s spending for political goals.
The court’s president, former EU economy commissioner and socialist heavyweight Pierre Moscovici, had no time for Le Maire’s arguments. “We are the only ones who have made no effort to reduce the debt,” he noted in an interview with Les Echos.
A solemn farewell
The warnings over France’s fiscal health come amid political uncertainty following a snap election that produced no clear winner, but which increased the presence of parties that ran campaigns promising higher public spending.
The left-wing New Popular Front alliance, which came in first, proposed generous social policies that would massively increase public spending. The left also pledged to withdraw Macron’s controversial pension reform, which increased the retirement age from 62 to 64 for most workers.
A similar policy was proposed by Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, even if the far-right party later backpedaled on some of its most expensive electoral promises.