Forget deficits. For many, childcare is big worry as French budget cuts loom.

[unhappycamper]

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2014/1001/Forget-deficits.-For-many-childcare-is-big-worry-as-French-budget-cuts-loom.-video

The EU is likely miffed that France will miss its 2015 austerity targets. But at home, critics are focused on a proposed $880 million in cuts to France's generous parental perks.

Forget deficits. For many, childcare is big worry as French budget cuts loom.
By Sara Miller Llana, Staff writer October 1, 2014

Paris — The headlines abroad about France's 2015 budget are understandably focused on the government's defiance of the European Union's mandated austerity. But within France, among families – particularly those like mine, with young children – concerns hit much closer to home: specifically, the generous parental perks now on the cutting board.

France’s Socialist government said today that it would not bring borrowing down to EU mandates of 3 percent of output until 2017 – two years later than it promised, after already having received an extension from 2013. “No further effort will be demanded of the French, because the government – while taking the fiscal responsibility needed to put the country on the right track – rejects austerity," the budget statement said.

Yet in France, that announcement has been overshadowed by the fact that the budget includes the biggest cost cuts in recent history – 21 billion euros ($26 billion). Among them would be a 700 million-euro ($880 million) cut to family benefits, including one-off payments for the birth of children.

The health minister's introduction of the welfare budget set the media abuzz about other family-related changes as well, from payments for second children to parental leave policies. Le Figaro claimed in an editorial Tuesday that “having children in France will soon become a luxury.”

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Reuters video at link.

[Ilsa]

1. Children are a luxury item here in the

US that most people can barely afford. Yet the gop seems happy to force birth upon those who can least afford it.