The Minister of the Economy admits the difficulty of executing the 2026 budget and calls for a political compromise for 2027, in a context of degraded public finances.
The Minister of the Economy, Roland Lescure, recognized on Friday that the execution of the 2026 budget was going to “be very complicated”, the day after the alert launched by the Court of Auditors on the state of public finances. The day before, the institution had issued an alarming report, its president of the first chamber Carine Camby warning that “all the signals are red”, while the French public debt has reached a record level.
A 2026 budget under tension, an uncertain 2027
Questioned on France Culture, Roland Lescure agreed with the Court: “The Court of Auditors is right, the execution (of the 2026 budget) will be very complicated, and obviously the preparation of the 2027 budget will not be simple”. The minister said he wanted us to “do everything” to keep the commitment to limit the public deficit to 5% this year.
For 2027, he returned the responsibility to the political forces: “everything will depend on the collective will of the political parties who call themselves government to contribute to a compromise which will not necessarily be satisfactory for anyone, except that we will have a budget in total”. It will then be a question of “moving on to something else: the ten years which are opening, with big debates which I prefer to take place on a take-off runway without potholes”, he added, in reference to the necessary cleaning up of the accounts. On another note, he called for people to “stick together” in the face of the heatwave, rather than “pointing fingers at each other”.
Reaffirmed support for Gabriel Attal for 2027
On the political level, the minister confirmed that he supported Gabriel Attal for the 2027 presidential election: “I am a member of Renaissance and I am obviously loyal to my party boss who is the legitimate candidate”. However, he pleaded for a broader gathering of the central bloc: “ultimately we will need a candidate from what we call the central bloc, in the presidential election. I hope that Edouard Philippe and Gabriel Attal will come together at one point or another behind the one who is best placed and we will do everything so that he wins”.
