LIVE. 2026 Budget: François Bayrou receives Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday morning before his announcements

A summit meeting before highly anticipated announcements. Prime Minister François Bayrou is being received by Emmanuel Macron at the Élysée Palace late Tuesday morning, July 15, France Télévisions has learned. This is an opportunity for the head of government to present to the President of the Republic his decisions regarding budgetary guidelines for the 2026 finance bill. These options are then scheduled to be unveiled at the Hôtel de Matignon at 4 p.m. The stated objective is to make several cuts in order to save €40 billion in public spending. François Bayrou has been secretly working for several weeks to find a way to "escape the death trap of deficit and debt" without raising taxes. But opposition parties are eagerly awaiting his turn. Follow our live broadcast.
Reduce the deficit at all costs. François Bayrou has set himself a clear course: to reduce the French deficit to 4.6% of GDP next year, compared to 5.8% in 2024. But this already arduous mission could prove even more difficult to accomplish following Emmanuel Macron's announcements on Sunday of a new €3.5 billion defense effort. All this in a volatile and uncertain international context, as Donald Trump seeks to impose a 30% customs surcharge on European products .
Several ministers will be present alongside François Bayrou. To present his savings plans, the head of government will be accompanied to Matignon by five of his ministers and secretaries of state, franceinfo has learned. Eric Lombard, for the Economy, will speak alongside Amélie de Montchalin (responsible for Public Accounts), Catherine Vautrin (for Labor, Health, Solidarity and Families), Astrid Panosyan-Bouvet (responsible for Labor and Employment), and François Rebsamen (responsible for Regional Planning).
The threat of a motion of censure. With this savings plan, François Bayrou is playing for his political survival. The National Rally, which has drawn several red lines regarding the 2026 budget, is threatening to bring down the government with a motion of censure in the Assembly. The far-right party had refrained from challenging the executive during the pension debate, precisely in view of the savings plan. "François Bayrou is going to announce a whole host of budgetary horrors (...) so it will make more sense and we will be able to tell our voters why we censored," explained an RN MP to France Télévisions at the end of June.
Francetvinfo