Brazil is showing a strange paradox: despite the year ending with a GDP growth of 3.5 percent, inflation under control, the lowest unemployment rate since 2012 (at 6.1 percent), an increase in workers’ average income and investment growth, the financial capital is nonetheless managing to push the Lula government into a corner, with the help of the big media groups.

And this after the government has gone all in on “calming the markets,” as they say. With the aim of containing the increase in public spending in line with the “fiscal rule” in effect from 2023, the government had announced a package of cuts at the end of November totaling 70 billion reais (€11 billion) over two years. However, this failed to have the desired effect, even pushing the dollar to break through 6.20 reais for the first time. On Dec. 20, Congress approved the package in a watered-down version, leaving civil servants' high salaries untouched, for instance.

However, a part of the left has taken a stand against the cuts, not satisfied with the government’s proposal – not yet sent to Congress and whose approval is by no means a foregone conclusion – to........

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