François Bayrou mentions a referendum on "a comprehensive plan" to reduce deficits

"This is a comprehensive plan that I want to submit. It will require efforts from everyone, and given the scale that it must be, it cannot succeed if the French people do not support it," the Prime Minister declared in the "Journal du Dimanche."

Prime Minister François Bayrou raised the possibility of holding a referendum on "a coherent plan, with clear, legible proposals" aimed at reducing deficits and debt, in an interview with the Journal du Dimanche (JDD) published online on Saturday, May 3.

"It is a comprehensive plan that I want to submit, it will require efforts from everyone, and given the scale that it must be, it cannot succeed if the French people do not support it," he declared, while recalling that "a referendum can only be decided by the President of the Republic."

" A referendum can only be decided by the President of the Republic. The government proposes, the President decides. But the question of the French people's support for the reforms is the central issue," he continued. The Elysée Palace also clarified to France Télévisions on Saturday that this was, at this stage, a "hypothesis."

François Bayrou's government, which managed to pass the 2025 state and social security budgets earlier this year, avoiding a series of motions of censure, is now engaged in preparing the 2026 budget. It estimates that it needs to find €40 billion to meet its targets of reducing the public deficit from 5.4% of gross domestic product (GDP) this year to 4.6% next year.