PARIS (Reuters) – The French 2020 budget update due next week sees public debt reaching 120.9% of GDP this year as the government spends billions of euros to soften the impact of the coronavirus crisis, finance ministry sources said on Thursday.
The finance ministry also sees consumer spending falling by about 10% this year, while households build up precautionary savings of about 100 billion euros, the sources said.
The budget update, due to be presented next Wednesday, earmarks about 40 billion euros for industrial support plans targetting the tourism, automotive, aerospace and technology sectors in the form of loans and direct support from the state budget, the ministry sources said.
The government has already presented the tourism and automotive plans and is due to roll out the aerospace and tech plans in the coming days.
(Reporting by Leigh Thomas; Editing by Geert De Clercq and Gareth Jones)
