French presidential candidate Le Pen promises to cut fiscal deficit with golden rule
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Marine Le Pen of the far-right National Rally, who leads in opinion polls ahead of next year's French presidential election, said on the 2nd that she plans to introduce binding budget rules to bring public finances back onto a sound footing. Writing in the French newspaper L'Opinion, Le Pen declared that she would put her proposed "golden rule" to a referendum, saying it would, like Germany's "debt brake," strictly limit exceptions and bind parliament to an annual budget bill. The rule would require cutting the fiscal deficit by at least 0.5 percentage points of gross domestic product each year, which would reduce the deficit from 5.4 percent this year to 2.9 percent by 2032, when the next presidential term ends. She said the deficit would continue to fall and remain roughly balanced until debt, currently at 119 percent of GDP, reaches 60 percent. She did not specify when the referendum would be held or how the government would achieve that level of reduction, but said her figures were a "minimum target," adding that a fiscal plan to be outlined on the 6th would cut spending even more rapidly.