France’s prime minister, François Bayrou, has proposed scrapping two public holidays as part of radical measures aimed at reducing the country’s ballooning deficit, boosting its economy and preventing it being “crushed” by debt.
Outlining the 2026 budget on Tuesday, Bayrou suggested Easter Monday and 8 May, when France commemorates Victory Day, marking the end of the second world war, although he said he was open to other options.
The centrist prime minister said: “The entire nation has to work more so that the activity of the country as a whole increases, and so that France’s situation improves. Everyone will have to contribute to the effort.”
France is under pressure to bring its public deficit, running at 5.8% of GDP, under the 3% figure required by EU rules, and to rein in €3.3tn of public debt – on which the annual interest, of €60bn, could soon become its biggest budget outlay.
He’s not a fucking centrist…
Yeah, let’s not touch one cent of the 221 billion € each year given to large corporations, and instead stop celebrating the victory against Nazism.
Not only not a centrist, he can’t even do math.
Biggest public spending by far: gifts to private companies, going completely uncheck for decades, no one know what any of the 2000+ schemes are and why this money is given and for what and nothing is expected in return. But if we are missing 17 billions on healthcare budget, we are supposed to get screwed and shut up.
Sounds like royalty to me, we’ll get the cure out of the storage and sharpened again