French government criticized over $806M cut to aid

France, the fourth-largest country provider of foreign aid, has announced a major reduction in its official development aid budget. This year’s public development aid budget — the main budget set aside specifically for foreign aid — was previously set at €5.9 billion but is being cut by €742 million (around $805.9 million), or 12.5%. “We deplore this reversal,” Olivier Bruyeron, president of Coordination SUD, an association representing 180 French NGOs, told Devex. “In the situation of today’s world, more – not less– French aid is needed.” The move is part of a government decision to shave €10 billion from the 2024 public budget. Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire announced the change on an evening news broadcast last month, two months after the government’s 2024 budget came out in December 2023. He said cuts to the budget became inevitable after the forecast for French economic growth this year dropped from 1.4% to 1%. He blamed the drop on the “new geopolitical context” France is facing: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, clashes in the Middle East, and slowed growth in China and Germany. Although Le Maire said the cuts would be “distributed equitably,” foreign aid advocates said their sector is suffering a considerably deeper drop in funding than other sectors. The development community is still waiting to see how the budget cuts will be applied. Bruyeron said the foreign aid cuts came as “a surprise to us and to everyone in the development community.” Echoing comments made by other aid leaders, he said the decision was “in complete contradiction to the statements of the [French] president,” as well as a 2021 law calling for an increase in foreign aid, and a June 2023 heads of state meeting hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron. After being stagnant for a decade, France’s public foreign aid spending rose 50% from the start of Macron’s mandate in 2017 to 2022. In 2021, an “international solidarity” law promoted by Macron was adopted, calling for France to meet the United Nations target of spending 0.7% of gross national income on foreign aid by 2025. In 2022, the most recent year for which OECD figures are available, France was spending 0.56% of GNI. Last year, the target for reaching the 0.7% goal was pushed back to 2030. Aid leaders say that the recently announced aid spending cuts indicate a “revocation” of the law, writing in Le Monde that the cuts send “an incomprehensible signal to the rest of the world.” Last June, Macron hosted a “Summit for a New Global Financing Pact” in Paris, attended by representatives from 100 countries, including 40 heads of state and government — with an intention to increase global financing for development and combating climate change. Macron told the gathering that a "public finance shock" was needed, because "policymakers and countries shouldn't ever have to choose between reducing poverty and protecting the planet." Now, members of the aid community interviewed by Devex are concerned that the commitments France made at the conference will be abandoned. Louis-Nicolas Jandeaux, head of development finance at Oxfam France, said in a statement that the budget cuts represent “a very bad signal sent by the President of the Republic who otherwise wishes to present himself as a champion of multilateralism.” The funding cuts, he added, mean that the promises made by France at the summit “have been shattered,” and last June’s solemn commitments “were only a public relations operation.” “This decision calls into question the principles of justice and solidarity, tarnishes France's reputation internationally and, more seriously, puts human lives at risk.” Le Maire is expected to address the French Parliament on March 6 to explain the budget cuts. Foreign aid leaders are calling on Parliament to restore at least part of the funds taken away from development aid.