France may axe 2 holidays to trim debt
Presenting his outline 2026 Budget plan, Bayrou said two holidays out of France's total of 11 could go, suggesting Easter Monday and May 8, a day that commemorates the end of World War 2 in Europe.
After years of overspending, France is on notice to bring its public deficit back under control and cut its sprawling debt, as required under European Union rules.
Bayrou said France had to borrow each month to pay pensions or the salaries of civil servants, a state of affairs he called "a curse with no way out".
Bayrou had said previously that France's budgetary position needed to be improved by €40 billion next year.
But this figure has now risen after President Emmanuel Macron said at the weekend he hoped for additional military spending of €3.5 billion next year to help France cope with international tensions.
France has a defence budget of €50.5 billion for this year.
Bayrou said the budget deficit would be cut to 4.6 per cent next year, from an estimated 5.4 per cent this year, and would fall below the three per cent required by EU rules by 2029.
To achieve this, other measures would include a freeze on spending increases across the board — including on pensions and health spending — except for debt servicing and the defence sector, said Bayrou.
"We have become addicted to public spending," Bayrou said, adding that "we are at a critical juncture in our history".
The prime minister even held up Greece as a cautionary tale, an EU member whose spiralling debt and deficits pushed it to the brink of dropping out of the eurozone in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.
"We must never forget the story of Greece," he said.
France's debt currently stands at 114 per cent of gross domestic product — compared to 60 per cent allowed under EU rules — the biggest debt mountain in the EU after Greece and Italy.
The government hoped to cut the number of civil servants by 3,000 next year and close down "unproductive agencies working on behalf of the state", said the premier.
Bayrou said wealthy residents would be made to contribute to the financial effort.
"The nation's effort must be equitable," he said. "We will ask little of those who have little, and more of those who have more."
Losing two public holidays, meanwhile, would add "several billions of euros" to the state's coffers, said Bayrou.
But the proposed measure sparked an immediate response from Jordan Bardella, leader of the far-right National Rally.
He said abolishing two holidays, "especially ones as filled with meaning as Easter Monday and May 8 is a direct attack on our history, our roots and on labour in France",
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