In an interview published this Saturday, May 3, the Prime Minister indicates considering submitting a state reform plan and its expenses to referendum, while the executive seeks to save several tens of billions of euros in its 2026 budget.
“What I am targeting is the membership of the French”. While the government of François Bayrou is looking for 40 billion savings in the 2026 budget, which he intends to pass in majority through a reduction in expenditure, the Prime Minister announces to the JDD that a project could be submitted by referendum.
This principle, never used during the Fifth Republic, is studied like other possibilities. However, as each referendum should be decided by the President of the Republic.
“I think that the question is quite serious, quite heavy with the future of the nation, so that it is directly addressed to citizens. I therefore do not deviate from any possibility. It would be unprecedented. It is an overall plan that I want to submit, it will ask for efforts to everyone, and by the extent that must be their own, they cannot succeed if the French people cannot support it,” said the head of government.
François Bayrou thus deplores an “artichoke method” used to make the previous budgets: “We remove a sheet here, we add one there … Each pleads, sometimes blackmail for their sector of activity. Never see the overall picture. We do not advance”.
In this interview, the course given by the government remains the same, that is to say an objective of reducing the deficit below the 3% mark, while it slipped around 7% under Emmanuel Macron.
Still blurred expenditure tracks
However, the method remains unclear. Should we remove the tax reduction from retirees? To perpetuate the contribution of the wealthiest homes and businesses to the strongest profits? Remove state agencies? Many tracks have been put forward by members of the government over the past few weeks, without firm positions being taken.
What is the “preferential” envisaged by Emmanuel Macron?
Emmanuel Macron’s two five years are marked by various referendum temptations, without any one being subject to the French so far. The Head of State had indicated in his wishes of December 31 to want to ask citizens to “decide” certain “determining subjects” in 2025, without these being yet specified at this stage.
