{"id":404161,"date":"2025-09-07T02:32:19","date_gmt":"2025-09-07T02:32:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/404161\/"},"modified":"2025-09-07T02:32:19","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T02:32:19","slug":"did-macron-really-add-e1-trillion-to-frances-national-debt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/404161\/","title":{"rendered":"Did Macron really add \u20ac1 trillion to France&#8217;s national debt?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"article__paragraph  \">Opposition parties frequently put forward the following argument in response to warnings from Prime Minister Fran\u00e7ois Bayrou and President Emmanuel Macron&#8217;s supporters about France&#8217;s budget situation: Macron alone has added more than \u20ac1 trillion to the national debt since taking office in spring 2017, largely due to his &#8220;tax giveaways&#8221; to the wealthiest. But is it true?<\/p>\n<p>           \u20ac1 trillion\u2026 or \u20ac400 billion?           <\/p>\n<p class=\"article__paragraph  \">In June 2017, when Macron had just arrived at the Elys\u00e9e, the national debt stood at \u20ac2.281 trillion. By March 2025, it had reached \u20ac3.345 trillion. That is an increase of 47%, or \u20ac1.064 trillion \u2013 consistent with the \u20ac1 trillion figure often cited.<\/p>\n<p>      <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/assets-decodeurs.lemonde.fr\/redacweb\/editorial-design-sys-assets\/burger.svg\" class=\"lmui-icon\" alt=\"Options d'accessibilit\u00e9\"\/> <\/p>\n<p>      Under Macron<\/p>\n<p>      The past 25 years<\/p>\n<p class=\"sr-only\">Graphique utilisant des donn\u00e9es, utilisez les options d&#8217;accessibilit\u00e9 pour voir les donn\u00e9es brutes ou renforcer les contrastes.<\/p>\n<p>    Under Macron<\/p>\n<p class=\"sr-only\">Graphique utilisant des donn\u00e9es, utilisez les options d&#8217;accessibilit\u00e9 pour voir les donn\u00e9es brutes ou renforcer les contrastes.<\/p>\n<p>    Depuis 25 ans<\/p>\n<p class=\"sr-only\">Graphique utilisant des donn\u00e9es, utilisez les options d&#8217;accessibilit\u00e9 pour voir les donn\u00e9es brutes ou renforcer les contrastes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__paragraph  \">However, over the same period, the country&#8217;s national wealth, measured by gross domestic product (GDP), increased by 30%.<\/p>\n<p>      <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/assets-decodeurs.lemonde.fr\/redacweb\/editorial-design-sys-assets\/burger.svg\" class=\"lmui-icon\" alt=\"Options d'accessibilit\u00e9\"\/> <\/p>\n<p>      Under Macron<\/p>\n<p>      The past 25 years<\/p>\n<p class=\"sr-only\">Graphique utilisant des donn\u00e9es, utilisez les options d&#8217;accessibilit\u00e9 pour voir les donn\u00e9es brutes ou renforcer les contrastes.<\/p>\n<p>    Under Macron<\/p>\n<p class=\"sr-only\">Graphique utilisant des donn\u00e9es, utilisez les options d&#8217;accessibilit\u00e9 pour voir les donn\u00e9es brutes ou renforcer les contrastes.<\/p>\n<p>    Depuis 25 ans<\/p>\n<p class=\"sr-only\">Graphique utilisant des donn\u00e9es, utilisez les options d&#8217;accessibilit\u00e9 pour voir les donn\u00e9es brutes ou renforcer les contrastes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__paragraph  \">&#8220;A country with a higher GDP can afford to have higher debt, because the more wealth there is, the more possibilities there are to tax it to repay the debt,&#8221; said economist Xavier Ragot, president of the French Economic Observatory (OFCE). For this reason, most experts do not find it meaningful to look at the absolute increase in debt in billions. Instead, they prefer to compare it to GDP, the wealth produced in a given year \u2013 a more accurate measure of a country&#8217;s ability to repay its debt.<\/p>\n<p class=\"reading-mode-only \"><strong>You have 78.68% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Opposition parties frequently put forward the following argument in response to warnings from Prime Minister Fran\u00e7ois Bayrou and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404162,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[2000,299,36],"class_list":{"0":"post-404161","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-france"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115160674708541458","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}