Because the execution of the budgets is perilous election

"Yes, it is a policy of rigour." This is a fun tone that François Fillon repeated these words with high symbolic value yesterday on Europe 1. As if in a reserve near - rigour means for public spending, "not in the general sense of the term"-, he felt a certain happiness to have broken the week last to Japan, this semantic taboo. As there was a certain irony to assume now without detour this political creed, he attracted the ire of President stating in September 2007: "I am the head of a State in a situation of bankruptcy." "He was right before everyone", argue its faithful, while detractors sometimes phenomenon on this former supporter of the 'no' to Maastricht, now at the forefront to the France on the road to the stability pact.

It has been three years Premier alert tirelessly on the State of public finances and built his political image, specifically on the idea of rigour. Still he had to move from words to acts. Its multiple arguments might well be considered pious when wishes in 2009, to cushion the economic impact of the financial crisis, the head of Government had to accept to see the deficit more than doubled. For the 2011 budget, nothing of the sort: the France committed to Brussels to reduce its deficit to 2 points of GDP, approximately EUR 40 billion. If it succeeds, the effort will have been unreported in the past 20 years. State spending is frozen, those related to the deleted stimulus and tax niches will be eroded. With the 2011 budget, François Fillon is - finally - the way to prove that he, the Prime Minister so often deleted, was able to that few sarkozystes had dubbed "Mr Nobody" at the beginning of the quinquennium, weigh on a major economic choice. "The budget will be a moment of truth", he entrusted to his family late April.

The taken French witness

This choice there is of course not the work of the only head of Government - all directions have been validated by Nicolas Sarkozy. And the background has helped. When Brussels last December requires that the France reduces its deficit to 3 of GDP in 2013 (and step in 2014 as the wanted Paris), the movement is engaged. And yet, in the aftermath of the defeat of the UMP in March regional, the faithful of the Prime Minister still feared the influence of Henri Guaino, Special Adviser of the head of State to more Keynesian beliefs, and "afraid that Sarkozy opens the valves" of expenditure, as says one of them. Small twenty members were therefore took the lead in publishing a forum with the Matignon agreement, in "Le Figaro". Mid-April, a visitor to the evening of Nicolas Sarkozy raillait obsession of the Prime Minister to the note by the France markets.

The turn is some early may, when the Greek crisis mounts since the fall of threat from spreading. François Fillon takes the French witness at the "20 hours" and convene his ministers the following day while the head of State negotiates with its European counterparts. He thus solennise the reaction of his Government, and held several press conferences, will where it harden each day a little more it in May and June. "The Greek crisis has made its audible speech for ordinary citizens", provides a close. "No one did with irony his speech on the bankruptcy", adds another.

As a first step, it is also for the Prime Minister a way to be at the helm while he strayed from the first phase of the pension reform. Later, it becomes a way to get little little French to what he calls yet "rigour". Referring to the plane programmed on tax niches kick, he thus breaks taboo first: "what are the tax increases - should call things by their name - but they are not general increases.". The nuance following boldness is his shield, his means of ensuring that there is aucunecontradiction between his speech and the head of State while cultivating his small personal music.

Because the output profile while Nicolas Sarkozy ceases to repeat that it revise its teams in October. François Fillon would probably like to slightly extend the lease, at least until December, to defend the budget to Parliament, "it is an important marker" slips a counsellor. But the Prime Minister now discusses his departure with lightness. "Leaving Matignon, is not the end of the political life and is not the end of the short life," he said, while some of his advisers realize that it is not too much drag. Because the execution of the budgets is perilous election...