Bayrou’s government may be weakened but it has set a course: intensify social war by cutting 40 billion euros from the 2026 budget.
The bourgeoisie demands, ministers comply: no tax increase or exceptional surtax for companies or for the rich. Spending that is essential to the working classes will be chopped.
The government plans to freeze ministerial and local authority budgets next year. This will cause the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs in healthcare, education, justice and social services. Children in working-class areas will be deprived of swimming and judo. Schools will continue to be boiling hot every time there’s a heat wave.
It also plans to freeze tax brackets, family allowance, housing aid, RSA1 and retirement pensions while inflation will of course not be frozen. This will cause a mechanical impoverishment of the millions of people concerned.
Amélie de Montchalin, minister for Public accounts, wants to “attack useless tax niches”. She doesn’t consider as useless the billions of euros paid to major groups like Sanofi as research tax credits. Or the Dutreil Pact that allows bosses, including the extremely wealthy Bernard Arnault, to avoid inheritance tax.
She’s going for pensioners who benefit from a 10% tax allowance. And for those who receive a disability allowance or alimony. And for families who pay for a carer to look after their elderly parents.
The government has set its sights on healthcare spending. Hospitals are in a permanent state of emergency and beds are closed due to the lack of personnel yet Bayrou is demanding “a cost-control approach”. So regional health agencies will be closely scrutinizing every facility to see where cutbacks can be made!
The state refuses to touch the profits made by pharmaceutical labs, equipment suppliers or banks that prosper thanks to hospitals. It refuses to stop granting social contribution exemptions to employers of 70 to 80 billion euros every year. So the state is attacking the sick.
A reduction in daily sick pay, a limit to sick leave, withdrawal from long-term health insurance for patients ‘in remission’, patient transport reforms…the government’s roadmap is clear. It’s attacking injured, sick or worn-out workers and is running a permanent campaign to present them as being on welfare or as potential fraudsters.
In the meantime, and whatever parliamentary changes may happen, two budgets will continue to increase without limit: repayment of the public debt and that of the army.
In 8 years, the army’s budget has gone from 32 to 50 million euros. In the most recent law on military programming, the budget was to reach 70 billion in 2030. No sooner had the law been passed, it was already obsolete. Under pressure from the U.S. and on the pretext of better ensuring their defense, NATO members have committed to spending 5% of their GDP on armaments by 2035.
France is supposed to raise its annual military budget to 120 billion euros, which is double what it is today. Making these funds available is the reason that there are budget cuts in health and any services that are useful to the population.
Unlike countries where war is raging – Ukraine, the Middle East and several countries in Africa – we are not yet being bombarded and our children are not sent to the front. But we are already paying for the war. Our hospitals are dying and our living conditions are getting worse so that Rafale bombers and missiles can be built.
We must refuse to sacrifice ourselves to increase the profits of Dassault, Thales and other arms manufacturers!
The government is justifying the massive budget increase by the necessity to defend ourselves and go to war if we are attacked. But it’s the government that’s attacking us today. It’s the government that’s picking our pockets in order to make the bourgeoisie richer.
Those who are obliging us to tighten our belts today so that interest is paid to bankers who get richer from the public debt, are getting ready to send us to our death tomorrow to defend French capitalists’ business against their competitors. We must not accept.
Nathalie Arthaud
1 RSA (Revenu de Solidarité Active): an allowance paid to people who have no income at all, whether or not they are able to work. The amount is currently around 565 euros per month for a single person with no children. Although non-taxable, there are quite a number of conditions attached.