PARIS — French Prime Minister François Bayrou said his government will propose eliminating Easter Monday and Victory in Europe Day on May 8 as public holidays as part of an aggressive plan to right the country’s deteriorating public finances.

“We must as a nation work more,” Bayrou said on Tuesday during a highly anticipated press conference dedicated to his spending plans for next year, which lawmakers are set to debate after the summer break.

While Bayrou tried to frame the move as an act of collective sacrifice for the greater good, getting rid of vacation days is likely to infuriate French voters who are deeply attached to their generous social safety net and ample paid leave in comparison to other Western democracies like the United States. The most recent major change to France’s social welfare model, the law raising the retirement age in 2023, led to massive protests and remains deeply unpopular.

Yet Bayrou said such extreme measures are required to rein in France’s €3.3 trillion in public debt and lower a budget deficit that fell afoul of European rules during the pandemic and remains stubbornly high.

He likened France’s current situation to the debt crises of Greece and Spain in years past and vowed to act “quickly and decisively, but with fairness and justice.”

Bayrou said he and his ministers were looking at trimming the 2026 budget by €43.8 billion as part of their plan to get the budget deficit down to 4.6 percent of gross domestic product next year.

The prime minister said to get to that figure, the government will next year reduce its civil servant headcount by 3,000; cut another 1,000 to 1,500 jobs in government agencies or state-run institutions; cut healthcare expenditures by €5 billion; and to freeze the salaries of some government employees and the amount of welfare payments, including pensions, that are typically adjusted annually for inflation.

This developing story will be updated.