François Bayrou doesn’t do holidays. Fortunately, the battle for the hearts and minds of French taxpayers is holding him occupied.
The French prime minister has launched a sequence of movies, referred to as “FB Direct,” to persuade the general public that the €43.8 billion finances squeeze he has deliberate for subsequent yr just isn’t an act of sadism — however an unavoidable transfer to stop a finances disaster.
“All politicians are occurring a well-deserved trip. I can’t as a result of the times we’re going to stay by way of throughout these weeks of August and early September are completely essential. That is the second when the whole lot is at stake,” Bayrou mentioned within the first of those movies printed on Tuesday.
Final month, throughout a two-hour press convention billed as “a second of fact,” the French prime minister unveiled his draconian plans to drastically reduce public spending in 2026.
The plans embody slashing two of France’s 11 public holidays, decreasing the variety of civil servants and freezing welfare funds, together with pensions, which can be sometimes adjusted yearly for inflation.
The plan triggered a wave of shock from each the far-right Nationwide Rally and left-wing opposition events, that are threatening to convey down the federal government in the course of the finances vote within the fall.
However Bayrou just isn’t giving up, and desires to not less than persuade voters that the cuts could be made in their very own curiosity.
“While you’re pressured to borrow — to not purchase a home, an condo, house furnishings or to purchase a automobile, however merely to pay for on a regular basis bills — whenever you’re pressured to borrow and you may’t pay it again with out going each month to the financial institution to ask for a further mortgage which is increasingly more costly — that’s name over-indebtedness,” Bayrou mentioned.
His authorities is planning to convey France’s deficit — the distinction between how a lot a rustic’s authorities spends and the way a lot it receives in taxes — down from 5.8 p.c of GDP final yr to 4.6 p.c in 2026.
To date, there aren’t any indicators that the French public have been satisfied by Bayrou’s wake-up name. Solely 12 p.c of the French belief Bayrou, in accordance with a survey printed by pollster Elabe on July 31 — the bottom determine recorded because the ballot started.
However Bayrou hopes the French will likely be able to take heed to him, or not less than hear him out whereas they’re scrolling YouTube movies throughout their holidays.
“The purpose of this direct communication is so that you can kind your individual opinion,” he mentioned. “My certainty is that there isn’t a different path than this bearable and chosen effort.”