In view of the levels of public debt reached, growth must necessarily be combined with budgetary rigour, let us stop opposing what can and must be virtuous. It is not the "efforts" of the French that must be bent to reforms or austerity, it is the reforms and austerity that must serve growth, and therefore the French. Let's talk about profits! Who sells a product by praising its defects?
Every day we learn that everyone - the government, politicians, trade unions, entrepreneurs, etc. - is in favour of growth, no kidding, but so what? Everyone is in favour of good weather and growth, even the most rigorous supporters of budgetary orthodoxy, who see it as a sine qua non for recovery, or at least for reducing the risk of a lasting recession, or lasting sluggish growth.
Today, what seems sustainable is not development, but sluggish growth.
So growth, yes of course, but how and what?
The quest for growth has become a quest for the Holy Grail, a presidential incantation, a secular and republican prayer. We call for growth in the same way that others exhorted the Ds best efforts to help them.
For the past 50 years, we have been experiencing a downward trend in our growth rate: on average per decade :
- 5.9% in the 1960s (ah the sixties!)
- 4.1% in the 1970s
- 2.3% in the 1980s
- 1.9% in the 1990s
- 1.4% for the 2000s
- between 0.5 and 1% for the years 2010
The last years in which France experienced growth that we can consider significant and structurally impactful, i.e. above 3%, were 98, 99 and 2000 (respectively 3.4%, 3.3% and 3.7%, which is what we dream of today). And in the last 30 years, only two years have exceeded 4% of growth: 1988 (4.7%) and 1989 (4.2%).
Today, it seems very difficult to exceed a range situated at best between 1.5% and 2%, and in reality, we are not succeeding in removing the ceiling from 1%, a performance that is far from sufficient to influence the major social and macroeconomic indicators (unemployment, purchasing power, competitiveness, exports, innovation, etc.).
Growth is therefore declining, but in the face of a public debt that is growing, and even in great shape. Above all, beyond its evolution (+50% between 2007 and 2011), and its absolute value (2,000 billion of public debt), it has exceeded the alert threshold. A threshold that leads to a spiral of public debt because from now on each year France will have to repay between 200 and 250 billion euros, which is almost the annual budget of the State (290 billion). France must not only repay but also borrow again and again, becoming the leading issuer of debt in euros (overtaking Germany).
This rate of almost 100% of debt is important beyond dogmas and theories: two American researchers (Reinhart and Rogoff in the book "This Time Is Different") have shown empirically and historically that such a level is systematically harmful to growth, causing a loss of earnings of 0.5 to one point of growth.
The relationship between debt and growth is therefore clearly neither linear (it depends on the debt ratio) nor symmetrical: debt seems to benefit more from growth, with a reduction in % of GDP (not in absolute value) in years of sustained growth (99, 2000, 2001 then 2006, 2007 for example), than growth seems to benefit from debt. Moreover, the French are not mistaken in this cause-and-effect relationship, often considering, when questioned on the subject, that government spending needs to be cut to promote growth.
And beyond the economic approaches, public opinion is anxious about the dramatic European cases that have been exposed in recent years, and has schizophrenic dreams of a welfare state that it knows is no longer there (neither in ideas nor in means).
Collectively, we are also perfectly aware of the economic constraints, and in particular the budgetary constraints, considering that the State, caught up in these constraints, is no longer really in a position to act on things. A State that is neither innovative, nor a leader, nor a source of proposals (or, more accurately, solutions), as demonstrated by a 2012 presidential campaign that was more about rejection than proposing.
Like a doctor failing to treat a problem, politicians play down the ills they can no longer and no longer know how to treat. The denial of reality is more accurately a psychological denial.
The essence of political action now consists of oscillating like a crazy pinball between 3 old demons: the Coué method (the recovery is here, the unemployment curve is reversing, ...), scapegoating (global finance, previous governments, Europe, social dumping, bosses...) and burying your head in the sand (what crisis? we are less affected than others ...).
For the first time, the all-powerful political leader (since he was elected by the gods or by suffrage) is powerless to influence things, feels it, and struggles to adapt (pre-formatting of political thought). As for the people, the Republic's subjects, or rather vassals, supposedly powerless and destined to submit to the enlightenment of their leaders, they are feeling this new political incapacity, perceiving their new 'powers' (consumers, media, citizens, etc.) and dreaming of themselves as the Welfare-Me, which explains the emergence of all kinds of individual and citizen initiatives.
The French have become chronically disillusioned with politics, as with everything else. We are said to be world champions in pessimism, but we are also world champions in disbelief (we don't believe in the end of the world). That's good, even if it would be more exciting to believe in the new world than to defy the apocalypse.