PARIS―French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe unveiled an ambitious program of tax cuts and reduced public spending on Tuesday designed to boost investment and end the country’s reliance on state borrowing. The government sailed through a vote of confidence held afterwards, with 370 MPs in the lower house backing it and 67 opposed. Tackling France’s “addiction to public spending” was a priority, he said, warning that the public debt now totaled 2.1 trillion euros ($2.3 trillion), nearly the equivalent of an entire year’s economic output. “We are dancing on a volcano that is rumbling ever louder,” Philippe told the newly elected lower house. He did not, however, detail the some 4 billion euros in cuts needed to meet the deficit target but said some planned tax cuts would be postponed.

Source: The Standard July 05, 2017 06:00 UTC