A debt crisis threatens to topple France’s government
Marketplace All-in-One
Marketplace
4.5 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 3 December 2024
⏱️ 9 minutes
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Summary
From the BBC World Service: France’s Prime Minister Michel Barnier used special powers to force through his budget without a vote in parliament, and opposition parties are threatening to back a no-confidence motion. Then, China has fully lifted its ban on Australian red meat exports. And a debate has been sparked in Sweden over the “soft girls” social media trend that encourages women to quit their jobs to become stay-at-home girlfriends.
Transcript
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| 0:30.9 | A debt crisis is threatening to topple the French government. Hello, this is the Marketplace |
| 0:36.4 | Morning Report and we're |
| 0:37.5 | live from the BBC World Service. I'm Leanna Byrne. Good morning. France's government is hanging by a |
| 0:43.1 | thread after Prime Minister Michel Barnier pushed through a controversial budget using special |
| 0:48.3 | powers. That's not sitting well with opposition parties who are now backing a no-confidence vote |
| 0:53.2 | to oust him, possibly as soon as tomorrow. |
| 0:56.0 | All of this comes as France's debt is piling up with borrowing costs getting uncomfortably close to what we saw during Greece's debt crisis. |
| 1:04.3 | The BBC's Chris Buckman is in France and following this for us. Hello. |
| 1:07.9 | Hello there. Chris, I'm just wondering how we got here because France's budget deficit has really ballooned to 6.2% |
| 1:15.1 | of GDP that's far above the EU's 3% target. |
| 1:19.3 | Why has France struggled more than its neighbours to reduce borrowing post-pandemic? |
| 1:24.7 | This is a Mediterranean country and Mediterranean countries. They like to spend money, |
| 1:29.3 | not always when there's actually that money around. A lot of spending has been done to appease, |
| 1:35.7 | basically, a whole bunch of different important community groups around the country. And at the same time, |
| 1:41.1 | they've reduced taxes enormously, especially for big business. |
| 1:44.7 | So suddenly you've got these record budget deficits because they're just spent and spent. |
| 1:48.9 | And of course, they've broken EU rules about this. |
| 1:50.9 | And that's where we are right now. |
| 1:52.3 | Is France's economic model sustainable in the face of these rising debt costs? |
| 1:57.7 | President Macron even now seems so long ago, a year ago, said that on the one pledge that |
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