France is preparing a budgetary adjustment of 54 billion euros for 2027 in a bid to regain control of its public finances.
The effort comes as the deficit, after reaching 5.1% of GDP in 2025, is expected to rise to 5.4% in 2026 according to Bercy. The government’s aim is to bring it down to around 5% next year.
For Tunisia, France’s first trading partner, and for the hundreds of thousands of Tunisians living in the Hexagon, this new phase of budgetary restraint deserves particular attention.
Key figures
- 54 billion euros in budgetary effort planned for 2027.
- Public deficit expected at 5.4% of GDP in 2026, after 5.1% in 2025.
- Goal: around 5% of GDP in 2027, or 4.8% excluding new military spending.
- 312,463 Tunisian nationals held a valid residence permit or document in France at end-2025.
- 1,521 Tunisians were expelled from metropolitan France in 2025, i.e. +20.1% in one year.
54 billion euros to bring the deficit from 5.4% to 5%
The French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu proposes a budgetary effort of about 54 billion euros in the 2027 budget proposal.
This amount makes sense in light of the recent trajectory of France’s public finances. After a deficit of 5.1% of GDP in 2025, it is expected to reach 5.4% in 2026, according to Bercy, whereas the initial target was to return to 5%.
The government now aims to bring the deficit to around 5% of GDP in 2027. Sébastien Lecornu also notes a level of 4.8% excluding the new increase in military spending.
Without corrective measures, the Prime Minister estimates that the deficit could approach 6.5% of GDP in 2027.
Why 54 billion for only 0.4 percentage points of deficit?The government is not only seeking to reduce the existing deficit. It must also absorb the spontaneous growth in several expenditures: debt service, social spending, local authorities and the military effort. Without savings, these items would continue to widen the deficit in 2027.
Public debt becomes one of the main pressure points
The cost of France’s debt service should reach around 65 billion euros in 2026, i.e., about 4.5 billion more than initially planned.
The pressure is expected to rise further in 2027. Sébastien Lecornu estimates that France will need to find an additional 10 billion euros to finance its debt next year, notably due to higher interest rates.
France’s public debt already exceeded 3,460 billion euros at the end of 2025, i.e. roughly 115.7% of GDP.
Economy Minister Roland Lescure has estimated 64 billion euros as the state’s debt service burden in 2026, i.e., the interest paid to creditors. Relative to a French GDP of around 3,050 billion euros, this represents about 2.1% of annual wealth produced.
This magnitude is meaningful for Tunisia: these 64 billion euros are more than seven times the annual trade between France and Tunisia, and each year exceed what the French state spends on several of its major missions. This figure could reach 100 billion euros in the coming years if financing conditions remain comparable.
Reading note: this figure concerns government debt. The interest on all public administrations, local authorities, and social security falls under a different accounting perimeter.
No new tax, but a freeze on many expenditures
The government says it intends to pursue this adjustment in a context of fiscal stability. Sébastien Lecornu rules out a new general tax increase and has also dismissed freezing the income tax brackets, a scenario that had been considered.
The effort must therefore rest mainly on spending.
The state budget would be frozen in nominal terms in 2027, excluding higher debt service and the military budget. The index point used to calculate public sector pay would also be frozen.
Some ministries would nevertheless keep increased appropriations, notably Justice, Interior, Research and Ecology.
The military budget would rise by 6.4 billion euros.
Pensions, sick leave and local authorities also affected
Pensioners would also be asked to contribute. The Prime Minister mentions an effort “below 6 billion euros”.
The modalities are not yet definitively decided. Among the options discussed are changes to the indexing of certain pensions or questioning some tax advantages. The government insists that no pension will be reduced in nominal value.
The Ministry of Labour is expected to find about 2.5 billion euros in savings.
The government also aims for about 2 billion euros in savings on sick leave.
Sébastien Lecornu also indicates that, without corrective measures, Social Security expenditures would spontaneously rise by 22 billion euros, while operating expenses of local authorities would grow by about 7 billion.
France’s economy almost at a standstill
The budgetary effort comes in a challenging, weak-growth economic environment.
The Bank of France no longer foresees more than 0.4% growth in 2026, followed by an improvement to 0.9% in 2027 and 1.2% in 2028.
The unemployment rate is expected to continue rising in the short term to reach 8.4% by the end of 2026.
The average inflation is expected at 2.3% in 2026, before easing to 1.9% in 2027.
The French dilemmaFrance must reduce its deficit while growth remains weak, unemployment rises, and the costs of financing the debt increase. A too-brutal budget adjustment could weigh more on activity; an insufficient effort risks prolonging the deterioration of public finances.
Why Tunisia is directly exposed
For Tunisia, the primary transmission channel is commercial.
France remains Tunisia’s top trading partner. Trade in goods between the two countries reached about 8.9 billion euros in 2025.
France is especially Tunisia’s main customer: it absorbs around 23% of Tunisian merchandise exports.
A sustained slowdown in consumption or investment in France can thus ripple through orders to Tunisian companies, particularly in sectors highly integrated into European supply chains.
1,600 French companies and 170,000 jobs in Tunisia
The Tunisian exposure also comes via direct investments.
About 1,600 French-participation companies are established in Tunisia and represent around 170,000 jobs, according to the French Treasury Directorate-General.
France remains the largest foreign investor in the country, with around 260 million euros in investment flows in 2025, i.e., nearly a third of inbound FDI to Tunisia that year.
These investments are said to have contributed to the creation of around 4,400 jobs in 2025.
A slowdown in France can lead some companies to postpone investments. But the opposite effect is also possible: groups seeking to reduce costs can strengthen certain activities in Tunisia, especially where these activities are already integrated into their European production chains.
More than 312,000 Tunisian nationals hold a valid document in France
The other dimension of the issue concerns directly the Tunisian community settled in France.
At the end of 2025, 312,463 Tunisian nationals held a valid residence permit or provisional document in France, up from 304,287 a year earlier, i.e., a 2.7% increase.
This figure does not represent the entire population of Tunisian origin in France. Dual nationals and people who have acquired French citizenship are not counted as foreigners in these statistics.
In 2025, 20,598 first residence permits were issued to Tunisian nationals, i.e., a decrease of 8.4% compared with 2024.
Among these first issuances, 42.1% were for a family reason, 26.8% for a student reason, and 26.6% for an economic reason.
1,521 Tunisians expelled in 2025, i.e. +20.1%
The hardening of the enforcement of French migration policies also appears in the expulsion statistics.
In 2025, 1,521 Tunisian nationals of legal age were expelled from metropolitan France, compared with 1,266 in 2024, i.e., a 20.1% increase in one year.
Tunisia thus ranks fourth among the nationalities concerned, behind Algeria with 2,433 expulsions, Morocco with 1,909, and Georgia with 1,573.
All nationalities combined, 23,549 adults were expelled in 2025, i.e., an 11.1% increase.
The rise for Tunisians is therefore higher than the overall increase.
What these figures allow — and do not allow — to concludeThe rise in expulsions documents a measurable hardening in the enforcement of migration policy. It does not, however, demonstrate that Tunisians would be specifically targeted by French authorities or that they would be used as “scapegoats.”
The migration debate hardens, but French society remains nuanced
The political debate around immigration and access to social benefits has become more restrictive, but available data do not allow summarizing the entire French society as having a single dynamic of rejection.
The National Commission on Rights of Man recorded 9,737 crimes or offenses with racist, xenophobic or anti-religious characteristics in 2025, i.e., a 5% increase in one year.
Meanwhile, its longitudinal tolerance index sits at 64 out of 100, stable compared with 2024 and close to its highest levels since the series began.
The two trends thus coexist: a relatively high overall level of tolerance and the persistence of acts of hate and discrimination.
People perceived as Maghrebi more exposed to discrimination
Work by the Defender of Rights nonetheless shows that real or assumed origin continues to have concrete effects on access to employment and housing.
Among young people perceived as Black, Arab or Maghrebi, 41% report having faced discrimination in their job search in the last five years, versus 18% among those perceived as white.
In housing access, a young professional perceived as Maghrebi obtains about 37% fewer positive responses than a candidate perceived as of French origin under similar circumstances.
These data concern people perceived as Maghrebi as a group and do not allow isolating Tunisian nationals specifically.
Purchasing power and employment: the immediate risk for Tunisians in France
For Tunisian and Franco-Tunisian households living in France, the most direct impact of the slowing economy could be on employment and purchasing power.
With growth expected at only 0.4% in 2026, unemployment potentially reaching 8.4% by year-end, and inflation averaging 2.3%, households are operating in a more constrained environment.
The freeze of the public sector pay index will also affect Tunisians and Franco-Tunisian workers in the administrations, hospitals, local authorities or education, just like other public sector workers.
Transfers to Tunisia are also to be watched
The financial capacity of the diaspora is important for the Tunisian economy.
Transfers by Tunisians living abroad reached 8.7616 billion dinars in 2025, up from 8.2626 billion in 2024, i.e., an increase of 6%.
The available data do not allow precisely isolating the share originating from France.
But given the weight of the Tunisian community living in France, a lasting deterioration of employment and incomes in France could weigh on some households’ ability to save, invest or transfer money to Tunisia.
What Tunisia must monitor in the coming months
The first indicator will be French growth. Weaker consumption could translate into a reduction in demand facing Tunisian export-oriented firms.
The second will be investment by French companies. With 1,600 firms and 170,000 jobs involved in Tunisia, industrial arbitrage made in France can have direct effects on the other side of the Mediterranean.
The third dossier concerns social and migration measures. It will be necessary to distinguish political announcements, parliamentary amendments and provisions ultimately adopted.
Finally, the evolution of employment and purchasing power in France will be decisive in measuring the possible impact on diaspora transfers.
Key takeaways
- The French deficit should move from 5.1% of GDP in 2025 to 5.4% in 2026.
- The debt service burden of the French state will reach 64 billion euros in 2026, i.e. about 2.1% of GDP.
- The government wants to mobilize 54 billion euros of savings to aim for around 5% in 2027.
- France absorbs around 23% of Tunisian goods exports.
- Around 1,600 French-participation companies employ 170,000 people in Tunisia.
- 312,463 Tunisian nationals hold a valid title or residence document in France.
- 1,521 Tunisians expelled in 2025, i.e. +20.1%.
- The transfers by Tunisians abroad reached 8.76 billion dinars in 2025.
The 2027 budget bill still has to pass through the Council of Ministers and then a highly fragmented French Parliament. The 54 billion euros therefore represent, at this stage, a government objective and not a definitive set of measures.
For Tunisia, the stake goes far beyond France’s public finances: behind Paris’s deficit lie its top export market, tens of thousands of jobs linked to French companies in Tunisia, the income of a large diaspora, and a dense human and economic relationship between the two countries.
