The 2016 budget 2016 : the struggle to control public spending

While the trend in public finances in France has remained basically coherent with what was predicted over the past few years, the focus is more and more on reducing expenditure in all areas of public administration. Until now, reductions have mainly targeted the expenditures of the central state while also requiring efforts from local authorities and social security. However, in the absence of a significant recovery, the government's strategy of containing expenditure will be difficult to sustain. Taxes went up significantly in the early years of this government's term, in particular for the richest ten per cent. On the other hand, simplifications of the tax and benefits system have been very modest, and successive reforms of income tax for the first tax bracket seem to have been motivated above all by a desire to decrease the number of households this no longer makes sense. Finally, in view of the challenge of controlling public spending, better information on expenditure changes in each area of public spending would be beneficial to democratic debate.