2026 Budget: "The French needed to be woken up" for Pierre Moscovici, a "horror" for Marylise Léon

"The French had to be woken up," and the effort required of them is achievable, said the President of the Court of Auditors, Pierre Moscovici , on Thursday, two days after Prime Minister François Bayrou's budget announcements . "One thing that I fully approve of is that the French had to be woken up, that we had to present a budget that clearly states that, truly, debt reduction is now, that it is a priority," he said when interviewed on Franceinfo.

The Prime Minister unveiled his shock plan on Tuesday, which aims to achieve savings of €43.8 billion by 2026. This draft budget, if adopted by Parliament, will involve a "blank year" of freezing social benefits and pensions , a freeze on non-defense budgetary spending and, in particular, the elimination of two public holidays.

"We need to make significant efforts, and we need to make significant savings on spending. That's a reality. And I'd add one thing: we have the means to do so. This isn't austerity," said Pierre Moscovici. The High Council of Public Finance, which he chairs, will vote on this 2026 budget proposal in the fall.

Asked about the risk of censure of the government from the left, Pierre Moscovici said that "it is the government, it is the Prime Minister who must find a majority, or at least a non-censure majority ." "The Socialists are what they are. Clearly, as it stands, the budget is not acceptable to them, and we will probably have to make it more so," he continued.

CFDT General Secretary Marylise Léon , for her part, stated on France Inter that the possibility for employees to monetize their fifth week of paid leave is part of the "museum of horrors" of the government's ideas for reforming labor law. "Today, the number one issue is indeed the question of purchasing power, but it is not up to the employees themselves to give themselves a little more leeway to make ends meet by cutting back on their leave," she added.

Regarding the savings plan unveiled by François Bayrou on Tuesday, the CFDT leader said she was "completely clear that the situation is serious and that a specific budget is needed," but that this must not come at the expense of the "ecological transition" or "social justice." "The world of work cannot accept profoundly unjust measures and efforts that are absolutely not shared," she warned.

As for the issue of unemployment insurance , "when I hear François Bayrou explain to us that we still need to reform it because it's a brake on employment, it's like 'groundhog day'." "I feel like I'm waking up in 2017, when we were told that there was an employment problem because of unemployment insurance," she said. In this context, the CFDT's mobilization is "absolutely not excluded," she warned. "Now is the time for discussion (...) but it's part of the range of possible actions."