Growth of 0.3% is "more likely": the High Council of Public Finance considers the government's forecast of 0.5% for 2026 "difficult to achieve"

Is the government too optimistic? According to an opinion published this Wednesday, November 4 by the High Council of Public Finances (HCFP), an independent budgetary body attached to the Court of Auditors, growth of 0.5% in gross domestic product (GDP) in 2026, as anticipated by the executive, is "difficult to achieve". For the authors, a forecast of 0.3% would be “more likely”.

“The High Council notes that the energy price and interest rate hypotheses have not been updated and that the main figures of the economic scenario (growth, inflation) no longer correspond to a central forecast”, is underlined in this opinion relating specifically to the end of management finance bill for 2026 presented this Wednesday by the government. As for the government's inflation forecast (+2.1% in 2026), it "is now too low, by one or two tenths", he estimated. What's more, the institution considers that "the government's growth forecast for 2026 (+0.5%) already exceeded, in mid-October, that of most forecasters (+0.4%)".

Growth at 0.1% in the third quarter While the government is counting on a public deficit of 5.4% of GDP in 2026, the HCFP believes that this forecast is “weakened by recent developments and the latest information”. Indeed, this publication comes only a few days after that of French growth figures in the third quarter by INSEE, which reported a further decline in wealth creation of 0.1%. GDP had already fallen by 0.2% in the first quarter before stagnating in the second.

These forecasts are "below expectations", and "surprised all forecasters", declared the Minister of the Economy, Roland Lescure, after the council of ministers. But there is "no reason" to adjust this target (deficit), it is "a solid estimate that we maintain", he maintained. For his part, the governor of the Bank of France, Emmanuel Moulin, himself estimated on Tuesday, during the Economy Days in Lyon, that the Bank of France's growth forecast for 2026, of 0.4%, was "a little optimistic" and would be revised in mid-December.

Machine-translated from French