Hollande has announced an increase in France’s official development assistance budget for 2017, putting an end to several successive years of funding cuts, due to the report. Today the president told: “France must prepare the example on development assistance,” and arranged an assembly of French ambassadors at a meeting in Paris. Hollande promised to increase France’s development spending, which has suffered year-on-year cuts since he began his mandate in 2012 with negotiations on France’s 2017 finance bill looming on the skyline.

In 2015 the French government presented a slimmed-down development aid budget before backtracking and deciding to allocate a larger symmetry of the gross from the Financial Transaction Tax (FTT) to its international solidarity efforts.This year, Paris will once again dip into its FTT revenue to top up the aid pot. “Today, half of the revenue from the Financial Transaction Tax is allocated to tackling climate change. Next year an even greater share of the tax will be spent on these [development] objectives,” Hollande said. 

But president did not detail precisely how high the 2017 budget would be. Hollande told that “The official development assistance budget rose by €106 million in 2016, and in 2017 – the prime minister and I have done the calculations – it will rise again to allow us to meet our commitments”.
One potential problem raised by the NGO was the increasing importance of the FTT to the development budget. This tax was instituted in 2012 to allow France to increase its ad spending, particularly to support climate action.

Including these operations in the FTT tax base would bring up a substantial sum of additional support. But the French government regularly rebuffed the idea, trying instead to drive the subject forward at a European stage. One time once more this yr, the delicate question of the expansion of the FTT tax base will feature in the debate along the French finance bill.

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