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.
hahahahahaha!
That comment is going to be wildly unpopular.
For starters, ONE billionaire is too many. A billion is a ridiculous amount of money. Saying France has “only” 40 is so incredibly disconnected.
Nobody should be able to amass this level of wealth. And those who do, do it through sheer human exploitation and lack of ethics.
The fact that they get to have such incredible wealth while the rest of us are struggling to make ends meet, and governments need to cut social services due to lack of funding is criminal.
All the money is pooling into these peoples’ hands and you’re not asking yourself why? You don’t think that taxing that amount of wealth even a little might help anything?
I’d really like to hear why.