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Barclays CEO: job cuts driven by AI, calls it ‘icing on the cake’
Kalyeena Makortoff
The 5,000 job cuts are part of a wider cost cutting drive that Barclays bosses said has been driven by advances in artificial intelligence.
The majority (60%) affect support roles.
The job cuts will mean getting rid of about 5% of the bank’s 93,000 global staff.
The bank’s chief financial officer, Anna Cross, told reporters that it was part of plans to save more than £1.1bn in 2027.
These actions involve an expected reduction of circa 5000 full time employees, around 60% of the group actions relate to support functions, including theory developers. AI makes our people more productive.
When asked how many of the total job cuts would be directly linked to AI, chief executive CS Venkatakrishnan said the bank had been making “deep investments” in technology and simplifying its processes.
That is driving the bulk of the efficiency gains that you’ve seen so far. AI has an important role to play and may have a more important role to play in the future.
He called AI the“icing on the cake” to modernising the bank’s technology.
We have been focusing on the infrastructure build, and where the infrastructure is modern, we’ve been applying AI.
The news comes months after another UK-headquartered bank, Standard Chartered, announced plans to cut more than 7,000 jobs over the next four years as it ramped up the use of AI. It will mean slashing around 15% of its back-office roles by 2030.
Key events
Just one more thing before I go…
Forrester Research’s principal analyst JP Gownder has sent us his thoughts on the risks of reducing the workforce to fund AI investments.
Too many organisations announce large-scale job cuts while claiming that AI is making workers redundant, when the reality is often much more complicated. Cutting 5,000 jobs while pointing to AI-driven efficiencies risks assuming that AI can replace more human work than it is currently capable of doing.
The risk for Barclays, and any organisation pursuing AI-linked headcount reductions, is cutting faster than the technology can compensate. Replacing an employee means addressing the many different tasks within their job, deploying AI that can perform those tasks reliably at scale, and adapting those systems as workflows evolve. If that doesn’t happen, companies can find themselves with fewer people but without technology genuinely doing the work they removed.
Some roles will shrink because of AI. But in most roles and in most cases, organisations are using AI as an excuse for financialised layoffs, and AI isn’t doing the work formerly done by those employees at all.
Closing summary
Wall Street stocks have fallen as strong results from Facebook parent Meta and Tesla failed to counter doubts about the AI outlook, and oil prices jumped to a five-month high.
The Dow Jones lost 146 points, or 0.3%, to 52,711, while the benchmark S&P 500 dropped nearly 70 points, or 0.9%, to 7,688. The tech-heavy Nasdaq tumbled 455 points to 26,247, a 1.7% decline.
Meta shares fell 5.5% despite the company reporting a 26% increase in quarterly revenue to $64.6bn, helped by AI recommendations, more ads being shown and rising ad prices. It also emerged that Meta, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, has struck a deal with Mark Zuckerberg to help him foot a possible California wealth tax targeting billionaires.
The electric carmaker Tesla’s shares slipped 0.1%, after reporting better-than-expected profits on Wednesday. But investors were probably more interested in chief executive Elon Musk floating the idea of merging the car company with his rocket and AI company, SpaceX.
Brent crude rose by more than 3% to above $112 a barrel earlier, the first time it’s been at that level since 18 May, after late night attacks by Iran-aligned Houthi rebels in Saudi Arabia and hits to tankers in the strait of Hormuz threatened further disruptions to the world’s crude supply.
French borrowing costs continued to rise on Thursday, as investors fret that France’s government is struggling to pass a federal budget after public protests gripped the country.
France’s bond market was hit with another bout of selling, with the difference between French and German 10-year borrowing costs – a metric for the risk premium attached to French debt – rising to its highest level in almost 15 years.
The yield on the French 10-year bond – known as obligation assimilable du Trésor (Oat) – rose by nine basis points to 5.089% in early trading on Thursday, its highest level since July 2022. It broke across the 5% threshold on Wednesday for the first time since 2002.
The move lifted France’s 10-year borrowing costs over the equivalent for US Treasury bonds for the first time since 2013.
The volatility comes as the French government struggles to pass a budget for next year, while the country recovers from widespread protests that turned violent last weekend.
Barclays is cutting 5,000 jobs as part of wider cost-saving plans that its bosses say are being driven by advances in AI.
The job cuts will mean losing about 5% of the bank’s 93,000 global staff, with executives confirming they had already cut 1,000 workers since the start of the year.
The bank’s chief financial officer, Anna Cross, told reporters that the job cuts were part of plans to save more than £1.1bn in 2027.
These actions involve an expected reduction of circa 5,000 full-time employees. Around 60% of the group actions relate to support functions, including fewer developers, as AI makes our people more productive.
When asked how many of the total job cuts would be directly linked to advances in AI, the chief executive, CS Venkatakrishnan, said the bank had been making “deep investments” in technology and simplifying its processes.
Websites around the world have been hit by millions of attempts to exploit a recently discovered vulnerability in their code, cybersecurity companies have said, as the US National Security Agency warned the flaw could allow attackers to take control of web servers, steal data and disrupt services.
The problem in the PHP programming language, which underpins about 70% of the world’s websites, emerged on Wednesday causing governments and companies to pull their websites off the internet before they could be attacked and so they could patch the fault.
With that, we are wrapping up for the day. Thank you for reading – we’ll be back tomorrow. Take care! – JK
Websites across world hit by millions of attempts to exploit PHP code flaw
Websites around the world have been hit by millions of attempts to exploit a recently discovered vulnerability in their code, cybersecurity companies have said, as the US National Security Agency warned the flaw could allow attackers to take control of web servers, steal data and disrupt services.
The problem in the PHP programming language, which underpins about 70% of the world’s websites, emerged on Wednesday causing governments and companies to pull their websites off the internet before they could be attacked and so they could patch the fault.
In the UK, 32 government services have been taken offline, the cybersecurity minister, Liz Lloyd, told parliament. She said this “largely resulted from precautionary measures” while updates were applied.
Downing Street said no public-facing critical services had been affected and that “some limited services may be temporarily offline” but this did not mean they had been hacked. The website for the BBC’s Traitors was one of those that was down on Thursday. It sparked particular concern about the ongoing vulnerability of systems used by schools, local governments and charities, which may not have dedicated cybersecurity support to execute the fix.
Aletha Adu
Back to our main story today. Barclays announced this morning that it is cutting 5,000 jobs partly due the use of greater technology, namely AI, as it reported a 12% increase in quarterly profits to £2.3bn and a £500m share buyback.
A No10 spokeswoman said job losses at Barclays are a matter for them but added the government recognises uncertainty for employees, reports our political correspondent Aletha Adu. The spokeswoman said:
AI will change how people work, and we will support working people through that change.
Turkey cuts interest rates, pointing to slowing inflation
Turkey’s central bank has cut its key interest rate to 36%, the first reduction in nine months, as it pointed to a recent slowdown in inflation.
The bank reduced its policy rate from 37% to 36%, in the first cut since January when the bank lowered the key rate from 38% to 37%, a level it stayed at until now. It explained in a statement:
Despite monthly fluctuations, recent inflation figures and leading indicators confirm the downward trend.
Data on economic activity and the limited impact of supply shocks on domestic prices suggest that the weak trend in domestic demand continues.
However, geopolitical tensions are keeping energy prices high, which could push inflation higher, it warned, saying the effects of geopolitical developments “are being closely monitored”.
Turkey’s annual inflation rate eased to 29.7% in September from 31.5% in August, marking the first time it was below 30% in nearly five years, according to official figures.
At the time, Turkey’s finance minister Mehmet Simsek said it was at its lowest level since November 2021. “Disinflation is spreading across the board, excluding transportation,” he said on X.
The official figures are disputed by the ENAG group of independent economists. It said its own figures showed annual inflation much higher, at 46.6% in September.
UK must prepare for infrastructure attacks by hostile states, says Streeting
The defence secretary, Wes Streeting, has said Britain should prepare for the threat of “state-sponsored terrorism” by hostile powers targeting everyday infrastructure as part of a national conversation about resilience in the face of emergencies.
He said on Thursday the public should consider how to respond to so-called hybrid warfare risks, such as cyber-attacks that could knock out payment systems used by businesses or cause supply chains to collapse. He also said the public should consider natural risks, such as flooding or wildfires.
European states have become increasingly vocal about the threat of sabotage efforts by enemies, particularly Russia, which can cause disruption or even directly threaten safety. These efforts have included an explosives-laden drone found next to a Ukrainian cargo plane at Germany’s Leipzig airport in August, and a series of unexplained explosions and fires at defence facilities.
Streeting was speaking at a new tank gun barrel factory in Telford in the West Midlands. The factory, owned by the German manufacturer Rheinmetall, is part of efforts to accelerate rearmament in the face of Russian military threats, but Streeting also emphasised that the public should be prepared for hybrid warfare, or sabotage actions that stop short of outright war.
Terms like hybrid warfare and grey zone threats do not accurately capture or convey to the general public what I prefer to describe as state-sponsored terrorism. So in the face of those threats, which are not hypothetical but real, and not somewhere else but increasingly here, we have to step up and take seriously our national resilience as well as our national defence.
Aldi and Lidl will be subject to same rules as major supermarkets, CMA says
Also on the retail front, Aldi and Lidl will be subject to the same rules as major supermarkets to ensure customers get the best choice of where to shop, the UK’s competition watchdog has said.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has decided to designate Aldi, Lidl GB and Lidl NI as “large grocery retailers,” a move that will prevent the discount chains from blocking rival supermarkets opening close to their stores.
The UK food and grocery market is worth an estimated £222.7bn, with Aldi and Lidl ranking among the top five retailers by market share, the CMA said. The two German supermarket groups have grown strongly in recent years and opening new stores around the country.
Aldi is the UK’s fourth-largest grocer with a market share of 10.6%, behind Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Asda, while Lidl has been vying for fifth place with Morrisons, at 8.2%, according to retail analysts Wordpanel by Numerator.
The order has applied to Asda, Co‑op, Marks and Spencer, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose since 2010. It is designed to stop large grocery retailers from using land agreements to make it harder for rival supermarkets to open nearby – in particular through the use of restrictive covenants and exclusivity arrangements. The rules ensure supermarkets compete freely – and ultimately ensure shoppers have more choice about where to buy, and how much to pay for, their groceries.
In August, the CMA invited views on its proposal to designate Aldi, Lidl GB and Lidl NI under the order. Interested parties including Morrisons, Waitrose and Iceland submitted their views, and all supported the CMA’s proposal. The regulator said it did not receive representations from Aldi or Lidl.
Once a retailer is designated, it cannot include any prohibited restrictions in new agreements – and existing agreements can be reviewed by the CMA, on the request of interested landowners, developers, and rival supermarkets.
Juliette Enser, executive director for competition enforcement and markets at the CMA, said:
We put in place rules to stop big supermarket chains from blocking rival stores opening in their area, and now those rules apply to Aldi and Lidl.
This will help level the playing field and make sure shoppers get the best choice of products and prices in their area.
Save high street by taxing online sales at higher rate, Burnham urged
Andy Burnham has been urged by one of his most senior former advisers to tax internet sales at a higher rate than those in physical shops to help “level the playing field” for struggling high streets.
As the prime minister and his chancellor, John Healey, prepare for their first budget next week, Andy Haldane joined calls for them to take action to stop the shutters coming down on growing numbers of shops across the UK.
In an interview for a Guardian series looking at how Britain can reverse the declining fortunes of towns, the former Bank of England chief economist urged them to launch a realignment of the tax system away from favouring online sellers, alongside a review of business rates and measures to turbocharge devolution.
Meta strikes deal with Zuckerberg to protect him from California wealth tax
Meta has struck a deal with Mark Zuckerberg to protect him from the threat of a California wealth tax targeting billionaires.
The social media company behind Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp revealed on Wednesday night that the arrangement would keep its chief executive living in California, where its headquarters are located.
Under the deal, Zuckerberg will receive new shares that could be sold to potentially foot a multibillion-dollar tax bill in the event that California passes a one-off billionaire tax. In return, he is committed to remain a resident of the state, or wherever Meta maintains its base, for eight years
Californians will vote early next month on Proposition 40 – a one-time 5% tax on the roughly 250 billionaires who live in the state.
Lunchtime summary: French bond yields jump as oil prices hit five-month high
Time for a summary.
Investors are demanding a similar risk premium to buy France’s 10-year government bonds against safe-haven German Bunds to 2011 during the eurozone debt crisis.
The spread between bonds of both countries reached more than 173 basis points today, the widest since November 2011, although still below the 200bps seen at the height of the global financial crisis.
The yield, or interest rate, on the benchmark French 10-year government bond is up 11.5bps at 5.1%, after rising as high as 5.1415%, its highest since July 2002. It breached 5% for the first time on Wednesday.
The French 10-year yield also rose above that of the equivalent US Treasury bond for the first time today, as US Treasury yields declined.
Giada Giani, an economist at Citi, said:
There exists a consensus that Europe is better equipped today to deal with crises, and that European institutions are stronger today than they were 15 years ago, which should make a European response easier to put together.
But re-emerging euroscepticism is a constrain here.
Bonds are under pressure from rising inflation, with concerns stoked by a jump in oil prices today, as well as worsening government finances and persistent street protests over the cost of living and other grievances in France and Italy.
Oil prices jumped to a five-month high after attacks in Saudi Arabia and hits to tankers in the strait of Hormuz threatened further disruptions to the world’s crude supply.
Brent crude, the international benchmark for oil prices, rose more than 3% above $112 a barrel for the first time since 18 May. It is now trading at $111.85 a barrel, up $3.05 on the day, a 2.8% gain.
Yemeni Houthis, who are aligned with Iran, hit several targets in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, with two people killed and eight more wounded in a civilian airport in Dammam, and two people killed in a drone attack on a Saudi oilfield.
Spot gold has fallen nearly 2% to $4,063 an ounce.
A closely-watched survey showed an improvement in French business confidence in early October, but it did not capture the recent protests, with more planned for Saturday.
A divided French parliament is struggling to pass the annual government budget plan for next year, needed to keep a lid on its ballooning budget deficit and growing public debt pile.
Analysts at Goldman Sachs think the budget wrangling could well last into December, and the annual budget gap could hit 6.4% of GDP. Even if the government can get its €54bn savings package through, the deficit will still amount to 5% plus of GDP for the third consecutive year and push total debt above 120% of GDP for the first time — second only to Italy in the eurozone.
Barclays is cutting 5,000 jobs as part of wider cost-saving plans that its bosses say are being driven by advances in AI.
The job cuts will mean losing about 5% of the bank’s 93,000 global staff, with executives confirming they had already cut 1,000 workers since the start of the year.
The bank’s chief financial officer, Anna Cross, told reporters that the job cuts were part of plans to save more than £1.1bn in 2027.
These actions involve an expected reduction of circa 5,000 full-time employees. Around 60% of the group actions relate to support functions, including fewer developers, as AI makes our people more productive.
Maritime and port workers: how is the Middle East conflict affecting you?
The conflict in the Middle East continues to disrupt shipping across the region, including in the strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s busiest maritime routes.
Iran state TV has reported that seven oil tankers were damaged in the Straight of Hormuz on Wednesday night. There has been an increase in the number of attacks on ships in recent days; some vessels have been hit by drones, others by mines.
We would like to hear from maritime workers, port staff and shipping crews or families aboard ships affected by the conflict. What is happening in the Strait of Hormuz? How is the situation affecting your work? We would also like to speak to friends or family of those on board. What are you hearing? How are they coping?
John Healey says helping entrepreneurs will be a budget priority
A week today John Healey, the chancellor, will be doing a media round defending the budget he is presenting on Wednesday next week.
Ahead of that, he has given an interview to Patrick Maguire from the Times. As you would expect, there is no real detail in it about the measures he will be presenting to MPs.
But the big picture message is very clear – and quite surprising, coming from a chancellor serving a PM who in some respects is steering left compared to his predecessor, writes the Guardian’s political correspondent Andrew Sparrow.
Healey says that he wants to be on the side of bloody-minded entrepreneurs who make a profit, he acknowledges that government has made their life harder over the past two years, and he suggests that cutting the ‘cost of living’ for business is just as important as cutting the real cost of living for families.
In the quote that gives the Times its splash headline, Healey says:
I want to be a chancellor who backs business in Britain making a profit, and those entrepreneurs who, in the end, are the ones who challenge the status quo, come up with innovative ideas and are trying, some of them through sheer bloody-mindedness, to keep going through these sorts of pressures …
If you’re not making a profit, you’ve got nothing to put back into the business. And for the people who start up these businesses, the ones who really thrive and grow, they have to make a profit — and they will be much more inclined to put it back into their own business. But we want it to grow here and stay here.
You can follow the latest on our politics live blog with Andrew Sparrow here:
Sainsbury’s says households ‘finding it tough’ in run-up to Christmas
Sarah Butler
Sainsbury’s has warned of a “pretty challenging” market in the run-up to Christmas as households are “finding it tough” and food producers face rising costs.
Simon Roberts, the chief executive of the UK’s second biggest supermarket, called on the government not to “further aggravate” pressure on costs for business in this month’s budget.
He said it was “important this government does not repeat what we have seen in previous budgets” in raising business rates and employers’ national insurance contributions. “That’s been really hard,” he said.
After Sainsbury’s and other industry leaders met government ministers last week, Roberts said he believed “this government is really listening to business” especially on helping to create more jobs for young people.
Roberts added that food inflation was not “anything like” some of the high levels forecast earlier in the year but suggested high energy and fertiliser costs could push up food prices next year.
Roberts added that in a more unsettled global environment the UK needed to “improve food resilience and grow and produce more at home”. He called on the government to increase tax breaks that support investment in technology – including irrigation and reservoirs – on farms as the climate crisis is expected to lead to more hotter, drier summers such as this year’s.
Shares in Sainsbury’s slid 3.7% as the retailer revealed slower than expected sales growth of 2.6% in the six months to 12 September, with growth almost halving to 1.9% in the second quarter from 3% in the first. Strong online grocery sales – up 9% – and a 6% rise in sales of the retailer’s premium own-label Taste the Difference range helped with growth.
Roberts said sales had slowed as shoppers had kept a tight rein on the number of items they bought amid a “focus on the cost of living” and had reined in spending on clothing and “big-ticket” items, such as furniture, at Argos. Sales at the catalogue shop were down 1.8% and Sainsbury’s general merchandise and clothing sales were down 3.4% in the half.
Barclays boss backs UK chancellor over expected bank tax hikes
Kalyeena Makortoff
Barclays’ CEO seems to have admitted defeat over bank tax hikes, which are expected to be a headline measure in John Healey’s budget next Wednesday.
When asked whether the bank might consider tilting assets or investment out of the UK and to the US – where it also has operations – as a result of higher taxes , Barclays chief executive CS Venkatakrishnan gave his full backing to the chancellor.
He told reporters:
I recognise that the chancellor and the government has been entrusted with an important duty by the public and the people. And they have to balance a host of considerations. He [Healey] is the man in the arena, and I deeply respect the responsibility he bears on his shoulders and wish him well.
His long term goal is the same as our long term goal, which is to get growth.
Second, we are already a bank, which makes, effectively, half of our money elsewhere [ outside] the UK. And so this is not a question of a financial hit to us. It’s bearable. It is a question of proportion and it’s a question of market signaling. But as I said, I deeply respect the responsibility that the chancellor has and he has our full support and backing.
Bank bosses have been lobbying intensively against bank tax rises since narrowly escaping higher levies during last year’s budget.
That includes JP Morgan boss Jamie Dimon, who said earlier this year he could scrap plans for a new £3bn London headquarters if the UK government became hostile to banks. News of the tower – which will house more than half of its 23,000 UK staff – was unveiled just days after former Labour chancellor Rachel Reeves spared the sector of further tax rises in her 2025 autumn budget.
Lorry drivers’ blockades bring southern Italy to standstill
Lorenzo Tondo
French president Emmanuel Macron isn’t the only European leader to be holding emergency meetings.
As lorry drivers’ protests bring much of southern Italy to a standstill amid food and fuel shortages, with businesses warning they are on the brink of collapse, Italian authorities have launched a police crackdown on road blockades, reports our man in Palermo, Lorenzo Tondo.
The interior ministry said on Wednesday that 1,339 protesters had been identified, 71 reported to judicial authorities and 242 fined over what it described as “illegal road blockades”. Police escorted hundreds of vehicles carrying goods, including 500 in Campania alone, while the interior minister, Matteo Piantedosi, warned of possible infiltration by criminal groups.
Industry associations in Campania and Puglia warned that businesses were on the brink of collapse, prompting the prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, to convene an emergency cabinet meeting.
Industry associations representing Naples and other parts of Campania and Puglia said in a joint statement:
The truckers’ dispute requires an immediate response. Production has ground to a halt due to a lack of supplies. The strike must end; otherwise, the damage to consumers and businesses, which is already significant, will become unsustainable.
The protests began last week, with lorry drivers blocking roads and slowing traffic across the country, particularly in the south, following strikes and sit-ins by farmers and fishers.
The disruption has left supermarket shelves empty in several regions, with photographs showing entire aisles stripped of goods. Stocks at some supermarket chains have reportedly fallen to 50% of normal levels.
Italy’s air traffic management agency, ENAV, said on Wednesday that Crotone and Reggio Calabria airports had run out of jet fuel because of supply disruptions.
According to estimates gathered by Confcommercio Sicilia, the five-day disruption to freight transport has caused between €40m and €50m in losses in Sicily alone, affecting supermarkets and the wider fresh food supply chain.
The protests threaten to deepen the crisis facing Meloni’s government, which is struggling to contain the unrest. Measures announced so far by Rome appear to have done little to appease lorry drivers, prompting the government to take the controversial step of attempting to quell the protests through a police crackdown.
The ongoing protests in France create a vicious circle, ING’s senior economist Charlotte de Montpellier warned.
The yield on 10-year French government bonds OATs has crossed the symbolic 5% threshold, while the spread over the German Bund has widened beyond 160 basis points, from 137bps last Friday.
These moves reflect both growing doubts about the ability of any future government to pass the necessary reforms and savings measures, and mounting concerns about the outlook for the French economy.
At the same time, the renewed deterioration in financial conditions is further weakening an already very poor growth outlook by increasing the cost of credit.
ING is forecasting GDP growth of just 0.3% in 2026 and 0.6% in 2027, but the risks are tilted towards another downward revision. De Montpellier added:
Against this backdrop, the government’s objective of reducing the deficit to 5% of GDP in 2027 looks particularly fragile, as it is based on growth of 0.5% in 2026 and 1% in 2027, well above our forecast. Even if the draft budget were adopted in full, it might therefore not be enough, as weaker activity would automatically reduce the expected tax revenues.
French business confidence improves but unrest clouds outlook, with more protests planned
French business confidence unexpectedly improved in October, but this does not capture the impact of the latest social unrest, while higher interest rates, a weak labour market and worsening public finances are clouding the outlook further.
A closely-watched business confidence index edged up by one point to 97, but remains below its long-term average.
The main surprise came from industry. The manufacturing business climate index rose to 105 in October 2026, above market expectations and 101 in September, marking its highest level since July 2022. The improvement was driven mainly by overall order books, although they stayed negative (-11 vs -16 in September) and foreign order books (-1 vs -10), with the latter reaching its highest level since April 2022.
In the services sector, the business climate indicator rose one point to 99.
On prices, Charlotte de Montpellier, senior economist covering France and Switzerland at ING, noted that the survey provided no new inflationary signal. Intentions to raise prices declined in industry and remained stable in both services and construction. The employment climate indicator fell three points to 95, as hiring intentions worsened in the services sector.
The rebound is encouraging, especially after several months of disappointing industrial data. But it does not fundamentally alter the outlook. The indicator of perceived economic uncertainty rose sharply. In services, it even reached its highest level outside the Covid-19 crisis.
The survey was conducted between late September and early October. It captures the widening in French bond spreads, but not the violence and social unrest seen last weekend. “October’s rebound is encouraging, but fragile and already partly overtaken by events,” de Montpellier said.
The nature of the risk has changed. It no longer relates only to weak activity and the impact of higher interest rates, but also to the economic, political and financial consequences of social unrest.
The economic cost of the violence is not limited to broken shop windows and looting. Material damage represents only the most visible part of the bill. Closures, lower footfall and permanently lost sales could weigh far more heavily on activity.
But the real issue is persistence. A brief and localised episode would probably have a limited macroeconomic impact, while prolonged unrest could undermine confidence by encouraging households to avoid city centres, tourists to postpone their trips and businesses to delay investment. This could turn a temporary disruption into a more lasting economic shock.
The unrest also makes it even more difficult to secure parliamentary approval for the budget, at a time when the government has virtually no room to respond through additional spending or tax cuts. France therefore has neither the fiscal room to buy social peace nor the political room to impose the necessary adjustment easily.
More protests are planned this weekend, and the French president Emmanuel Macron – back from his tour of the Gulf – is hosting a security council meeting to try and put out the fires at home.
We’ve launched a fun (??) game – you can pretend to be the UK chancellor and play the budget game to see if you can balance the books.
See if you can do a better job than John Healey at creating a budget that keeps MPs and the bond markets onside.
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