Tackling debt 'curse', France wants to slash holidays

France's Prime Minister Francois Bayrou said Tuesday he wanted to reduce the number of public holidays as part of an urgent plan to tackle what he called the "curse" of his country's debt.

Presenting his outline 2026 budget plan, Bayrou said two holidays out of France's total of 11 could go, suggesting Easter Monday as well as and May 8, a day that commemorates the end of World War II in Europe.

After years of overspending, France is on notice to bring its public deficit back under control, and cut its sprawling debt, as required under EU rules.

Bayrou said France had to borrow each month to pay pensions or the salaries of civil servants, a state of affairs he called "a curse with no way out".

Bayrou had said previously that France's budgetary position needed to be improved by 40 billion euros ($46.5 billion) next year.

But this figure has now risen after President Emmanuel Macron said at the weekend he hoped for additional military spending of 3.5 billion euros next year to help France cope with international tensions.

France has a defence budget of 50.5 billion euros for 2025.

Bayrou said the budget deficit would be cut to 4.6 percent next year, from an estimated 5.4 percent this year, and would fall below the three percent required by EU rules by 2029.

To achieve this, other measures would include a freeze on spending increases across the board -- including on pensions and health spending -- except for debt servicing and the defence sector, Bayrou said.

"We have become addicted to public spending," Bayrou said, adding that "we are at a critical juncture in our history".

Remember Greece

The prime minister even held up Greece as a cautionary tale, an EU member whose spiralling debt and deficits pushed it to the brink of dropping out of the eurozone in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

"We must never forget the story of Greece," he said.

France's debt currently stands at 114 percent of GDP -- compared to 60 percent allowed under EU rules -- the biggest debt mountain in the EU after Greece and Italy.

The government hopes to cut the number of civil servants by 3,000 next year, and close down "unproductive agencies working on behalf of the state", the premier said.

Bayrou said that wealthy residents would be made contribute to the financial effort.

"The nation's effort must be equitable," Bayrou said. "We will ask little of those who have little, and more of those who have more."

Losing two public holidays, meanwhile, would add "several billions of euros" to the state's coffers, Bayrou said.

But the proposed measure sparked an immediate response from Jordan Bardella, leader of the far-right National Rally.

He said abolishing two holidays, "especially ones as filled with meaning as Easter Monday and May 8 is a direct attack on our history, our roots and on labour in France".

Leftist firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon of the France Unbowed party meanwhile called for Bayrou's resignation, saying "these injustices cannot be tolerated any longer".

Source: AFP