The Minister of the Economy joins in. A few days following the good news that households have been consuming more (+10.14% in May in comparison with April, according to the Insee), Bruno Le Maire put his foot in it and explained vaccination “secures health safety to all. […] It will enable us to resume as soon as possible normal life again, find new growth, jobs, and activity”.
In Le Parisien, he advocates for mandatory vaccination for some professions: “For some professions especially exposed such as caregivers, compulsory vaccination seems natural to me”, the minister considers. He yet explains it is not up to him to set the rules, but “as the Minister of the Economy [he] simply set[s] the tone that should enable the economy to recover”.
Tests cost a lot of money, “about 100 million euros per week”, namely 5 billion euros this year. “The free test policy, sometimes multiple, and sometimes made out of decency by people refusing to get vaccinated, cannot be a fitting health response”, he claims.
Speaking of recovery, although the INSEE expects the GDP to increase by 6% in 2021, Le Marie explains that Bercy is more into a pessimistic scenario with a 5% growth to give a bigger leeway in the even the Delta variant affect the economy in the Fall. Le Maire is aware of how difficult recovery is for some sectors and announces that “in the most innovative sectors, public investments will be necessary” and announced in the coming weeks.
Last but not least, the Minister of the Economy addressed the reform of pensions he has been advocating for over several months. He thinks it is “necessary” if one wants our children to “live as well as we did, with a pension system based on repartition and an increasing living standard, we need to collectively work more”.
The upcoming months might be filled with economic measures!
