PARIS (Reuters) – French sports officials walked out of a speech by new minister Marie Barsacq over a planned 33% budget cut for their sector just a few months after a memorable Paris Olympics.
Earlier this month, Finance Minister Eric Lombard said the government aimed at squeezing around 50 billion euros ($52 billion) in savings out of the 2025 budget.
Lombard said a belt-tightening effort was necessary in order to preserve economic growth, adding the budget bill currently being drafted would target a deficit in a range of 5.0% to 5.5% of gross domestic product.
“How can we let this slide after the summer we’ve had?” Marie-Amelie Le Fur, president of the French national sports agency, asked Barsacq at the headquarters of the National Olympic Committee (CNOSF).
“We need the State, madam minister, and we need you to convey this message to the government.”
As Barsacq prepared to address the floor, which featured dozens of officials and the federation president, about 30 of them left the room.
In a letter to Prime Minister Francois Bayrou, CNOSF president David Lappartient, who is among the candidates for the International Olympic Committee presidential election in March, lashed out at the “incomprehensible budgetorial trajectory proposed by the government”.
The government has started the tortuous process of negotiating the budget, with a parliamentary vote expected some time next month.
Lombard began consultations with opposition parties earlier this month in an effort to preemptively win support before proposing the new budget bill.
That was in hope of avoiding a no-confidence vote like the one that brought down the previous government in early December amid a backlash against its belt-tightening proposals.