France is on the precipice of the “abyss”, National Rally leader Marine Le Pen warned as she and her deputy Jordan Bardella presented their party’s financial plan to avert the looming debt crisis and revive the country’s economy.
Speaking from party headquarters in Paris on Tuesday, presidential candidate Marine Le Pen — the current favourite in the 2027 race — announced that if given power, the National Rally (RN) would look to deliver €140 billion ($158bn) in net savings by 2032, while restoring the budget to a primary balance within eighteen months, reducing the deficit to the EU limit of three per cent by 2030, and slashing the national debt by ten points over five years, Le Monde reported.
“If the French do not choose a political break, France is heading towards default,” she warned, while criticising the “disastrous record” of President Emmanuel Macron, whom she mocked for his supposed expertise in economics that was highly touted ahead of his election due to his history as a former banker for the Rothschilds.
“How many thousands of articles, each more dishonest and biased than the last, to explain that Emmanuel Macron, the Mozart of finance, would save our public accounts?” Le Pen questioned. “The French elites have deliberately failed and worse, have lied to thwart the RN’s victory.”
“Emmanuel Macron’s disastrous record isn’t just pie-in-the-sky figures: it translates every day into the purchasing power of the French people. The burden of spending and taxes, but also the economic gloom it generates, are largely responsible for the purchasing power crisis facing French families,” she added.
Le Pen asserted that taxes in France have risen in real terms by nearly 350 billion euros ($394bn) during Macron’s tenure in the Élysée Palace, and claimed that the current government would raise taxes further by 17 billion ($19bn).
“Emmanuel Macron has been unable to genuinely reduce public spending by implementing true structural reforms. The share of public spending in GDP in 2026 is substantially the same as in 2012,” she added.
At the core of the National Rally economic agenda is a “golden rule” for national budgets requiring them to aim for the gradual reduction of French debt until it reaches 60 per cent of GDP. Under the Macron government, French debt has soared to nearly 120 per cent of GDP and threatens to climb even higher. To counter this, Le Pen said her government would cut spending by €85.5 billion ($96bn), Le Figaro reported.
A large part of the budget-slashing effort will focus on reducing spending on immigration, Le Pen said, such as by slashing taxpayer cash spent on housing, medical care, and other social benefits for foreigners. Meanwhile, the party would look to ramp up efforts to prevent illegals from entering the country in the first place. In total, the RN leader said that some 12 billion euros (13.5bn) in savings could be made by simply refusing to give handouts to foreigners.
Le Pen also said that her government would look to cut back the bloat of the French bureaucracy. However, rather than conducting mass firings, she said that her government would reduce the number of government employees by refusing to hire replacements for those who retire. She also said that the National Rally would conduct a review of the country’s social security and pension systems, through which she expects to accumulate over 45 billion ($51bn) in savings.
Additionally, the populist leader said that her government would look to cut back on money to Brussels, reducing annual net contributions to the EU budget to five billion down from over nine billion at present.
However, the front-running presidential candidate also said that her party would look to cut taxes to spur a “competitiveness shock” to spark the stagnant French economy into a “rebirth”. Although counterintuitive in a push to reduce the debt and deficit, the cuts could increase overall tax revenue to the treasury if they spur economic growth, according to the phenomenon known as the Laffer Curve.
Among the taxes proposed to be slashed are the Value Added Tax (VAT) on energy and other essential products. Le Pen said a National Rally government would end the “punitive and self-serving vision of environmentalism” that has seen the government spend money “at a loss” on subsidising intermittent energy sources like solar and wind.
Meanwhile, she also announced plans to refit buildings with air conditioners and to redirect the existing Green Fund toward disaster relief and fire prevention. Eco taxes on cars will also be reformed, with the system set to provide financial incentives to buy vehicles produced in France.
Many businesses can also expect relief, with the National Rally leader vowing a €20 billion ($22.5bn) cut in production taxes, and a corporate tax reform to favour small businesses.
While many establishment prognosticators have been critical of Le Pen and the party’s often left-leaning economic policies, Tuesday’s announcement appeared to go down well in the bond markets, with Paris’ 10-year bond yield seeing its largest single-day decline since May, Reuters reports.
Commenting on the plan, National Rally president Jordan Bardella — widely tipped to be the next prime minister of France — said: “From now on, one must choose.
“Choose between useful spending and that which is not. Choose between increasing levies or restoring purchasing power to the French. Choose between continuing the headlong flight into debt or restoring order to our public finances.”
“France does not need new promises paid for by new debts,” Bardella added. “It needs a State that fights against waste, that prioritizes its objectives, and that spends taxpayers’ money intelligently.”