France finds itself in the excessive deficit procedure of the Stability and Growth Pact since 2009. Since the start of the financial market crisis and the following Eurozone sovereign debt and banking crises, France has been unable to honor its European legal obligations and repeatedly entered into conflict with the European Commission when trying to postpone the requirement to balance its budget. This paper compares the fiscal policies and consolidation strategies during the presidencies of Nicolas Sarkozy, François Hollande and Emmanuel Macron. Drawing on theoretical work on fiscal consolidation and fiscal governance, this paper tries to elucidate the importance of party differences influencing the ambition, strategies (focused on expenditures or revenues) and results of fiscal consolidation policy in France on the one hand and the effects of the reformed European and national-level fiscal governance institutions on French fiscal policy on the other. To what extent does the approach to fiscal policy taken by the current president represent a break with the long-standing budgetary approach of both left- and right-wing presidents and governments during the last 15 years? And in how far can we draw lessons from the French case with regard to the performance of the EU’s reformed fiscal governance framework and the need for future reform?
