In the meantime, France will plunge into recession this year, warned the minister, with an expected GDP down 1% in 2020, far from the 1.3% growth forecast by the government before the appearance of the virus.
But he insisted that this forecast was “provisional”, depending “of the evolution of the epidemic in the coming weeks and of our capacity to overcome this crisis”.
“Nationalization if necessary”
To limit the damage, including bankruptcies in cascade of companies, too fragile to cash a total stop of their activity for weeks, the government will draw an immediate arsenal of 45 billion euros.
The main part – 32 billion euros – will be carried over or canceled from social and tax charges, already in place for several days.
The partial unemployment arrangements for employees forced to stop working will cost 8.5 billion euros over 2 months, said Bruno Le Maire during a conference call with the press.
“If we are putting so much money on the table now, it is to help (the economy) to restart quickly”, once the epidemic is overcome, justified Le Maire.
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/arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-infobae.s3.amazonaws.com/public/6TA3ABOJZFFJJMDX5KYXBOPC7U.jpg "The number of deaths in the United States from coronavirus exceeded the barrier of 100")
