Lecornu presses for budget decisions ahead of the 2027 presidential election

Paris – 22.07.2026: Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu has spoken out against postponing budget decisions until after the presidential election in spring 2027. In an interview published on Wednesday, he stressed that France cannot suspend its decisions until then. The government must now propose a fiscal course, even if voters may later choose a different direction.

Lecornu links this position to an institutional argument: the democratic legitimacy of an incumbent government does not relieve it of the duty to respond to identifiable financial risks. The forthcoming 2027 state budget must therefore be definitively debated before the election campaign. In doing so, Matignon is pushing back against the expectation that a new president would immediately revise the fundamental budget decisions after taking office.

The political framework is tight. On 16 July, the government presented the first spending ceilings for the 2027 budget proposal. According to these plans, ministerial spending, excluding defence and interest payments, may rise by only 0.4 percent. That would be significantly below the inflation expected for 2027. At the same time, substantial additional spending is planned for the armed forces and debt repayment.

According to the current plans, the defence budget is to increase by 6.4 billion euros in 2027. A further 12.3 billion euros is estimated for interest on public debt. Outside these two areas, only an increase of 1.5 billion euros would remain for all ministries combined. The guidelines make clear that fiscal room for manoeuvre is primarily constrained by security spending and the financing costs of debt.

The government continues to aim for a gradual reduction in the public deficit, from 5.0 percent of gross domestic product in 2026 to below the European threshold of 3 percent again. At the beginning of July, Lecornu had already warned that foregoing a budget approved in time could cause the deficit to rise to 6 to 7 percent in 2027. This forecast is politically controversial, but underscores the pressure on parliamentary deliberations.

What will therefore be decisive is not only the technical preparation of the budget, but also the government’s ability to organise sustainable compromises in parliament. The bill for the state budget and the one for social security must normally be submitted at the beginning of October. Lecornu’s recent statement indicates that Matignon does not want to accept the election date as a pretext for budgetary inaction.