The President of the Senate calls for new budget cuts, without tax increases, in the face of growing debt and the cost of the war in the Middle East.
The President of the Senate Gérard Larcher (Les Républicains) estimated on Thursday that it would be necessary to make six billion euros in additional savings to meet the 2026 budget, after the six billion already announced in April. His statement comes as French public debt reached a new record in the first quarter of 2026, at 3,536.1 billion euros according to INSEE.
Cuts without tax increases
“We are going to have a meeting soon, to take stock” and “in addition to the 6 billion announced, we will probably need 6 billion more,” declared Gérard Larcher on Europe 1 and Cnews. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu must soon convene a public finance alert committee to announce new cuts intended to compensate for the cost of the war in the Middle East. The government had already indicated in April, within the framework of a previous committee, that six billion euros in savings on expenditure could be made in 2026, in the form of credit freezes or “targeted cancellations”.
In this situation, Gérard Larcher refused any increase in taxes, France being according to him “gold medal in terms of compulsory levies”. He favors reducing spending over increasing the tax burden. “We will have to ask ourselves the question of organization, we can no longer remain in this situation,” he warned.
The President of the Senate specified that the upper house would make proposals “in principle”: “We must preserve justice, security, defense, these are the three sovereigns”, but question “the social budget”. These guidelines suggest that the cuts could primarily concern social spending, with sovereign missions being preserved.
