The return to earth is brutal. Mobilized by the composition of his government, which he promises to be unifying, Michel Barnier must immediately focus on preparing the budget. An exercise that promises to be hellish, as the constraints of time, political balance and especially the deterioration of the accounts will weigh on the shoulders of the new Prime Minister.
The latter said he was aware of the urgency to act, committing to speaking truthfully to the French about the debt. It is time, after a completely out-of-touch legislative election campaign that ignored this nevertheless unavoidable issue. The two months of presidential procrastination that followed did not allow us to return to reality, between the Olympic interlude and the campaign of the New Popular Front to impose its candidate at Matignon with an irresponsible government program on economic and budgetary levels.
Pensions, unemployment: savings to be preserved
The warnings of the former ministers of Bercy will have hardly been heard during this summer break. They will obviously be heard much more by the solid team currently being formed at Matignon around Michel Barnier (with Jérôme Fournel at the head of the cabinet, after having worked alongside Bruno Le Maire).
First sign of this return to reality: the Prime Minister’s message on pensions. In diplomatic terms, he ruled out the scenario of a return to the age of 64. Ready to “improve the reform” for the most vulnerable, but while respecting budgetary balances. But there is no balance. Above all, it would be totally unreasonable to spend even more on the pension system, the weight of which in France is significantly higher than the European average, when the financing needs are considerable elsewhere (for the ecological debt in particular).
On the Social Security side, MPs should be more interested in the financing of Health Insurance, which is structurally in the red. Unfortunately, the next few weeks in the Assembly are likely to be marked again by a pitched battle over the repeal of the pension reform.
In this context, Michel Barnier will have to decide quickly on the future of another reform, that of unemployment benefits. As with pensions, it would be unwise to do without a measure that is supposed to save more than 3 billion euros next year. Buoyed by the good reception given to his appointment, the Prime Minister must not deviate from his claimed realism.
