The French government is being sacked after it took €5 million in cuts from the public purse, an official said on Tuesday.
The government’s budget for 2015-16 was estimated at €20.8bn, with €5.7bn of that going to the environment and €5bn of it going to social programmes.
In a statement on its website, the government said that it had taken the cuts in a bid to “protect the environment, support public services and public health”.
“The cut to public funds was necessary in order to balance the budget.
It is not a reflection of the economic situation of the country,” it said.
The cut was announced last month in the wake of a record-breaking €10.5bn in cuts announced by President Emmanuel Macron last month.
The Paris-based environment ministry said the cuts were “a blow to France’s competitiveness in the global economy and a significant step towards undermining France’s global position”.
“A reduction of €5 billion to the budget, which will be used to reduce subsidies, is a significant blow to the economy and will seriously damage the environment,” it added.
Environment minister Emmanuelle Perrin said that the government had put the cuts into place in a way that was “necessary to ensure the sustainability of the budget”.
She said that this had resulted in a reduction in public spending on science and research, which she said was a “major step forward”.
“We are very grateful to the government for this,” she said.
“This is an important step to increase public spending, to support the economy, and to increase social security.”
Perrin said the government was taking steps to ensure that the budget “continues to be financed by tax and the state’s share of the overall budget”.
“This means that we are not going to have to spend more than we take in.”
We will keep the deficit under control,” she added.
The country’s top environmentalist, Joël Ruppé, said that a reduction of the amount the government took from the budget could lead to an “economic and social catastrophe”.”
It’s a step towards the collapse of France,” he told the Radio 1 programme The End.”
The whole economy of France is in the tank, the whole economy is in crisis, the economy is on the verge of bankruptcy.
“The French government was one of the countries most vocal opponents of the Paris climate deal, which aims to limit global warming by cutting carbon emissions.
