2024 deficit: Bruno Le Maire's secret letter accusing Emmanuel Macron of concealing the "slippage" in public finances

Not alone. Bruno Le Maire readily admits he made a mistake regarding the "slippage" of public finances in 2024. But he doesn't want to be the only one to take the blame when an entire team is responsible. France 5 has even revealed a secret letter addressed by Bruno Le Maire to Emmanuel Macron in April 2024.

The then Minister of the Economy informed the President of the Republic that the budget forecasts for 2024, with a projected deficit of 4.9% of GDP, seemed impossible to meet. He therefore proposed a revised budget, failing which the executive branch would create "a dispute with all opposition parties" and be accused of "insincerity."

“We risk being accused of hiding our handwriting (…). Any strategy of avoidance is doomed to failure,” wrote the Minister of the Economy. What happened next? Macron ignored the letter, then dissolved the National Assembly the day after the European elections.

He lost the legislative elections, then took months to appoint a new prime minister, preferring Michel Barnier to Lucie Castets even though the New Popular Front had come out on top in the elections.

And meanwhile, the budget continues to spiral out of control, to the point that in the end there is a shortfall of 42 billion euros in tax revenue to balance it… The so-called “Mozarts of finance” are then being lambasted from all sides, by the left, by the right, by the economic press, by orthodox and heterodox economists alike.

And Bruno Le Maire finds himself strangely alone in taking the blame , as if Emmanuel Macron or Elisabeth Borne and Gabriel Attal were not equally responsible, among others.

Especially since the chairman of the inquiry commission dedicated to the "slip-up," the left-wing politician Eric Coquerel, concluded following the work that the deficit for the year 2024 was not only predictable, but above all indicative of the suicidal economic policy pursued since 2017: "The budgetary problem in France is not the false increase in public spending as the liberals foolishly repeat. It is the loss of revenue due to the supply and competitiveness policy."

But the former Minister of Economy only acknowledges a miscalculation for the year 2024. "We messed up on the revenues, and messed up big time," he concedes, while defending his overall record, even though the debt has increased by 1000 billion euros in the last seven years.

As for the rest, move along, there's nothing to see here, even though France has lost several hundred billion euros in tax breaks to the wealthiest and in public aid to companies , including multinationals, without any return.

The Elysée and Macron's party, for their part, pretend that everything is fine and ignore the revelation of Le Maire's secret letter, which shows that there was indeed a state omission.

According to them, in 2024 there was only a " major technical failure " and a " revenue assessment error attributable to central government ," while the government " took all necessary corrective measures in a timely manner ." Sure…