Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News. Ben, thank you so much for joining us on Bloomberg TV. Let me ask you what you see as the way forward.
But well, the Prime Minister and his government have just fallen because of a budget that we felt was extremely bad for the country. A new prime Minister will most certainly be appointed this evening and he will form his government quickly and we'll go back to the drawing board. That is to say, we'll work again on a budget that is likely to be able to renew France with growth, with the creation of wealth, without hitting the French people with a very French problem, which is taxes.
L you've asked yesterday, or you've said yesterday that the President macn does not need to resign. Why not?
Well, in any case, what I said that the president's resignation is a personal decision on his behalf and can only take place in my view, when a political crisis takes place or an institutional crisis can find no other solution than the resignation of the President of the Republic. It is not the case for the moment. What I do wish, on the other hand, because for sure there will be new legislative elections in the next few months.
Is that we work on a voting system by then that enables us to have a real majority, whatever that majority may be. But the country needs a majority. It can't live for months and years with three blocks, which in reality can't implement a policy.
Would you resign if you're a president of France today.
I would hope that I wouldn't find myself in mister mccron's situation, because, after all, he is majorly responsible for this situation, because the result of my Aniel Macron on an economic level are extremely bad. He introduced himself as being the Mozart of finance, but the reality is when you look at the figures when he came, and the figures today were not even drifting. We're going down a slope.
Whether we're talking about debt, just to remind you, in twenty seventeen, two thousand, two hundred billion of debt now three thousand, three hundred billion of debt, whether we're talking about industry nine percent of GDP in twenty seventeen, sorry I meant eleven percent in twenty seventeen, nine percent today, and the commercial deficit seventy billion to one hundred billion deficits that have increased in a spectacular way. We were at two point six percent of GDP in twenty seventeen,
now we're at six point one percent. So he has placed the country in such an appalling situation from an economic point of view that I don't really want to compare myself to him.
Economic.
But this latest budget and Monsieur Vamier was actually considered very respectable, liked by the markets in terms of the budget, and he gave your party quite a lot of concessions.
And well, first of all, that's wrong, and that's not
what we're talking about. What we're talking about is that we can't consider and I can't imagine the markets considered that a good budget is a budget when in fact we have record taxation within Europe that increases taxes by another forty billion, and that four billion of extra taxes on companies is good news at a time when we had sixty five thousand companies going out of business, that is to say, a record last year, at a moment when unemployment is increasing again and once again there were
two hundred and sixty redundancy plans throughout the country. And the budget was bad. And not only did it give rise to enormous extra taxes, but there were no savings as far as the state was concerned.
I'm going for a example, sur.
The elephant in the room, if you will, is the state's TX expending, which carries on going up and up and up, linked first of all to a multitude of waste, thousands of agencies, various institutes, which of course cost a fortune, and then of course linked to immigration. Let's be clear
about things. When there are five hundred thousand people that are coming into our country per year and only ten percent have got a work contract, how do we expect our social security system to take on this considerable weight of people who for ninety percent of them will not participate to the creation of wealth.
But when you do the numbers, what can you promise the markets in terms of deficit? So this latest budget proposal meant the deficit would be five percent of GDP next year and then three percent in twenty twenty nine, you promise similar numbers.
Well, I believe the markets would be right not to be contended simply with promises, especially when the promises can't be kept, Because, after all, the major difficulty in this area is that we've got to be able to make structural savings with regard to the functioning of the state, but at the same time recreate the conditions for wealth, that is to say, reindustrialization, to act on aspects that are essential, like, for example, the cost of energy, because
after all, it's the cost of energy which is really the key to all of this. And we mustn't strangle the economy. If you want to go too fast, you've got to have a trajectory that's a reasonable trajectory based on the creation of wealth and structural savings, rather than saying you will see we're going to reduce the deficit by two points over three years, and in fact you're doing things that are so appalling that people no longer spend money, and they save too much. There is no
longer any investment, and the economy collapses. And so we don't want to submit to deficits. It's been fifty years that we've been passing budgets with chronic deficits. We no
longer want to be in that modus operandi. We want to reabsorb the deficits, but we want to do it intelligently without depriving us of the chance to reindustrialize, to be able to help companies, to count on them to create wealth and therefore to also create employment, and to make young people work, because after all, that's also the central problem, because if young people don't work, then social
protection systems will be unbalanced. So all of those aspects are equilibriums that we have to try to find.
So, in terms of numbers, three percent of GDP and twenty twenty nine is far fetched.
Getting to three percent in twenty twenty nine, I don't think it's credible, but I'm not the only one. I don't think it's credible either. To the President of the Corte de Compte State Order, once again, these are simply promises and they know very well that they can't keep to them. Mister Barney made that promise and in reality
his budget worsened the deficit by twelve billion. So if we don't make significant intelligent structural savings with regard to the state, and if we don't put in place the conditions so that companies can work invest without being suffocated with extra taxes, we won't get there. But with those two solutions we can succeed as quickly as possible to get back to a reasonable deficit. Even if the three percent was just decided on the back of an envelope, how fast could.
That be.
To Well, it's a matter of weeks. We'll discuss it with the new Prime minister. We'll work together, we'll explain what our red lines are. Our red lines are. We can't ask the French people to pay the bill for the mistakes of their leaders. That's what mister Barney did. He massively increases taxation. He hits sick people, retired people, he hits everyone. And at the same time, once again, there's zero savings from the state. And that's inadmissible.
For surely time that.
Who would you like as prime minister?
Oh, it's not for me to choose. That really is the role of the President of the Republic. It's his responsibility. And I don't really care about the name. I care about the method. I want the Prime minister to respect all the political forces that are represented at the National Assembly. It's quite simply called democracy.
What can President Macun do today for your voters.
But leave Well, no, there isn't a solution. Immanuel Macron will never do very much in reality, and he's not going to give up on what he's been doing for seven years, destroyed everything. He's destroyed everything in seven years. Lat He destroyed what used to function in our state, the prefectural etcetera. He destroyed France's load bearing walls. He's caused massive de industrialization, He's crushed the French people with taxation.
He's done everything he wasn't supposed to do. So I'm not going to, for example, have any hope that tomorrow he'll be able to do absolutely the opposite of what he's done over seven years. Now, once again we will have to make do as long as he's there by hoping that the Prime Minister will be more reasonable than he is.
Not. Even a referendum on immigration would would make a difference.
He could have a referendum on immigration, but he won't do it because, after all, he said, I'm prepared to do a referendum on every subject apart from immigration. So it's kind of a taboo that we can't understand the justification for, because it's obvious that immigration that is totally out of control like we're living through, is not only a problem as far as our public finances are concerned, it's also a problem in terms of the consequences it
has with regards to the explosion of delinquency. So I don't think he'll ever touch immigration vill.
Go Len, But why not ask him to leave them before twenty twenty seven, even if the institutions say otherwise.
Well, because to ask him to resign would mean to disturb our institutions. Once again, it's his decision now if there is a political crisis, an institutional crisis, and if he can no longer dissolve the assembly, if reshuffles serve no purpose and the French constitution only leaves other option, which is his resignation. But that wouldn't be a drama either. There would be new presidential elections. General DeGaulle, you know, designed our institutions and they are very solid. They are
extremely solid. Everything's done to make sure that the life of the nation can carry on and not create disturbances that can't be dealt with. If he were to resign now, there would be new presidential elections and new legislative elections.
But but are you worried about these crisis and leading to severe market reactions.
Not no, because the reality is that what worries the markets is the economic situation in France. What worries the markets is the lack of perspective concerning reducing deficits. It's the absence of savings at the state level, the increase of taxation on companies that worries the markets. And in fact you've seen the markets have remained extremely stable over the past few days since the announcement of the no
confidence vote, and even after the no confidence vote. In reality, they had concerns at the moment of the dissolution in June. But for the moment, whether it's the spread between France and Germany and the rates or the markets, for the moment, everything is relatively calm because once again they realized that anyway, there has to be at all cost another policy other than that envisaged by mister Barnier.
But the market is probably looking at the fact that the ECB is standing close and that there's a want from France of getting the deficit down pretty quickly.
No, I mean, I'm going to.
Well, yes, but once again there's a long way to go between wishes and reality. Mister Barnier wanted to reduce the deficits, he's increased them by twelve billion, you see what I mean. So once again using a hammer to bash French people over the heads with attack is when we're the country with the highest rate of taxation in Europe. Is not the solution, but it's the only solution that French leaders have implemented for years. It doesn't work, sufunction
a situation. Look at the situation we find ourselves in. So help companies enable them to do business. Reduce production tax, reduce the cost of energy or at least reduce it to the same level as the cost of production in France. Those are things that will allow companies to develop and thus create employment.
I mean, first of all that the Bagnier actually proposal means that you know GDP would be the deficit of GDP would be five percent in twenty twenty five compared to six percent this year, so it's going down, no knowing.
No, the deficit rose by twelve billion. The deficit rose by twelve billion. But you know, the head of Saffron, which is a major company, has just given an interview, and what did the head of Saffron say. He said, Barnier's budget is a bad budget. So in reality, the fact that it's last year's budget that's applied, however unfair it will socially, is actually rather good news for companies.
There are a certain number of entrepreneurs in economic circles who are in fact pleased about the no confidence motion because they consider mister Barnier's budget was worse than last year's budget, and that's saying something.
Will you meet Trump when he's here for the reopening of Notre Dame on Saturday.
Well, I won't meet with him, but maybe we'll bump into each other, because I will indeed be there too at the reopening of Notre Dame, which is a major event for us in France. I don't have any relationship with Donald Trump. I will have one. I hope the day have become president of the Republic.
You have a trial against you that will decide whether you can run for president that we're expecting that outcome on the thirty first of March. Will John N. Badella be, of course candidate for presidency if you cannot present yourself.
I don't place myself in that situation of being prevented from being a candidate by the justice system. I think that in any country it's not acceptable to stop a candidate from representing themselves, and therefore I don't think about that situation. I hope that the magistrates will respect the will of the voters to be able to choose their candidates.
I have an African friend who sent me a text after the raids carried out against me and said, look, Marine, there are some countries where people don't have the right to vote, and there are countries where candidates aren't allowed to stand for election. In fact, I prefer countries where people can vote and candidates can stand for election.
Has it changed your thinking in actually you know, dealing with the budget?
Absolute, absolutely not. It has nothing to do with it. In fact, I don't see the relationship between the two. My only compass is the interests of the French people, the interests of our companies and the future of my country. That's the only compass I've always had and we'll ever have.