Government Holds 2026 Growth Forecast, Experts Remain Skeptical

The High Council of Public Finances (HCFP) considers the objective “difficult to achieve”. However, this Wednesday, the government maintains its forecasts for gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 0.5% for 2026 and a public deficit of 5.4%. In an opinion on the end-of-management finance bill made public this Wednesday, the HCFP, an independent budgetary body attached to the Court of Auditors, estimated a forecast of 0.3% “more likely”.

However, the Ministers of the Economy Roland Lescure and Public Accounts David Amiel presented an unchanged economic scenario for the end-of-management finance bill (PLFG) for 2026. This text, which adjusts the finances of the current year, must then be adopted by Parliament to come into force. Decline in GDP in the third quarter The scenario was however established “before the publication by INSEE on October 30 of the growth figure for the third quarter”.

The National Institute of Statistics reported a further decline in GDP of 0.1% in the third quarter, after already a drop of 0.2% in the first quarter and stagnation in the second. INSEE and the Banque de France are counting on 0.4%. The Governor of the Bank of France Emmanuel Moulin estimated on Tuesday that this forecast was even “a little optimistic” and would be revised in mid-December.

But the ministers point out that the government's forecast “already exceeded, in mid-October, that of most forecasters”. The debt will continue to grow, warns the HCFP. Similarly, the government's deficit forecast for 2026 is "weakened by recent developments and the latest information", judges the HCFP. He estimates that, just by taking into account the foreseeable increase in the debt interest burden, the forecast would increase “mechanically to 5.5 points of GDP”.

“There is nothing today, taking into account all the feedback we have, which leads us to revise our deficit estimate of 5.4% in one direction or the other,” Roland Lescure nevertheless considered in the Assembly. He nevertheless estimated Wednesday morning on BFMTV that growth for 2026 would be “between 0.3% and 0.5%”. The General Rapporteur of the Budget to the Assembly Philippe Juvin, for his part, considered the end-of-management finance bill and the opinion of the HCFP “concerning”.

This text is also presented as deputies prepare to reject the draft state budget for 2027, also considered by many to be built on overly optimistic hypotheses. In a report on this text, published Wednesday, the general budget rapporteur in the Senate Christine Lavarde estimates that “growth could, in 2026, be significantly lower than the government forecast of 0.5%”. She also judges the 1% growth target for 2027 to be “too optimistic” and “really imprudent”.

Machine-translated from French