Prime Minister Francois Bayrou proposed eliminating Easter Monday and Victory Day to address France's significant fiscal deficit and debt. He emphasized the need for national participation to improve economic activity, with a goal of reducing the deficit from 5.8% to 3% by 2029. Proposed budget cuts include freezing government spending, reducing healthcare expenditure, and capping welfare spending. The plan also involves curtailing civil service salaries and cutting government jobs. The suggestion to remove public holidays has sparked potential opposition by critics who view it as undermining national heritage.
France's prime minister, Francois Bayrou, has proposed scrapping two public holidays as part of radical measures aimed at reducing the country's ballooning deficit, boosting its economy and preventing it being crushed by debt.
The centrist prime minister said: The entire nation has to work more so that the activity of the country as a whole increases, and so that France's situation improves.
France is under pressure to bring its public deficit, running at 5.8% of GDP, under the 3% figure required by EU rules.
The move to scrap public holidays is likely to meet strong resistance, with critics emphasizing that cancelling two holidays is a direct attack on our history, our roots and on working France.
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