Budget: part of the left will meet Minister of the Economy Éric Lombard next week

A first step towards dialogue. The Socialist Party, the French Communist Party and the Environmentalists will meet next week the new Minister of the Economy Éric Lombard, who invited the different political forces to Bercy to prepare the 2025 budget for the State.

On the left, it will be the socialists who will go there first, Monday noon, the socialist group indicated to the National Assembly on Friday. The delegation will include the boss of the PS Olivier Faure, who is a “personal friend” of Éric Lombard, the boss of deputies Boris Vallaud and his counterpart in the Senate Patrick Kanner.

For the PCF, Fabien Roussel will go there on Wednesday at 2 p.m. with the presidents of the communist groups in both houses of Parliament, Cécile Cukierman and André Chassaigne.

LFI does not close the door

On the side of La France insoumise, we are not closing the door to a meeting with the new Minister of the Economy, but that will not happen right away. “We are waiting for the general policy speech and the vote of confidence, or censure, to respond to the invitation from the Ministry of the Economy,” indicated the national coordinator of the movement, Manuel Bompard.

Prime Minister François Bayrou’s general policy speech will take place on January 14.

At the end of December, saying he was ready for a “compromise” so that a budget could be adopted for the year 2025, Éric Lombard indicated that he was going to invite all the parties represented in Parliament to come and discuss at Bercy. The government again indicated on Friday that France’s public deficit objective for 2025 would be “the fruit of discussions” with political forces.

Before concessions to oppositions which were not sufficient to avoid censure, former Prime Minister Michel Barnier stated the intention of reducing the public deficit, which was at 6.1% of GDP in 2024 – worth in passing France an excessive deficit procedure in Brussels – at 5% in 2025.