Yay, France has a budget....a socialist one

The Barnier budget (RIP) planned to shrink the public deficit by one point of GDP, mainly counting on tax increases. The Bayrou budget halves this adjustment, keeps all the tax increases already envisaged and adds others. This was needed to secure the neutrality of the Socialist Party in the National Assembly, a party responsible for all the major economic policy mistakes of the past four decades (retirement at 60 under Mitterrand, the 35-hour week under Jospin, the fiscal bludgeoning under Hollande). We may have doubts about whether the budget deficit goal (5.4% of GDP) will be achieved but we can be sure that the French economy will not be strengthened by it.