France intends to make a further €1 billion (about $1.1 billion) cut to its aid budget in 2025, according to an initial 2025 national budget prepared this summer — having already slashed foreign aid spending last year and earlier this year.
The draft budget, published in September 2024, seeks to rein in spending to tackle a soaring public deficit. But it does this in a way that has the development community deeply upset. The two areas receiving the biggest funding reductions are development aid and domestic spending to combat climate change while spending increases for the military, 6%, and other security areas, 7%.
In total, the draft budget contains around a €1 billion cut to a €6 billion budget item labeled as the “ODA mission,” which funds an important part of France’s contributions to multilateral organizations, bilateral aid, humanitarian aid, and debt forgiveness, and is delivered through the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, and the Ministry of Economics and Finance.