when an expression turns against its authors

The question is asked. Thursday morning, the president of Medef, Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux, on RTL, and the president of the Senate, Gérard Larcher, on franceinfo, were questioned on the potential impact of this support plan for purchasing power. They were clear: no question, for them, of redoing the “whatever the cost”.

“If it’s a new one, no matter what, no. We can’t print tickets forever. We did it during the Covid crisis and we had to do it, but we’re not for that. We keep doing whatever it takes”, said Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux. Same opinion for Gérard Larcher: “We will not be able to continue what we have supported, whatever it takes, towards a form of whatever happens.”

Geoffroy Roux De Bézieux and Gérard Larcher spontaneously use the expression “whatever it takes” to qualify the measures envisaged by Emmanuel Macron. It is therefore not the vocabulary used by the entourage of the President of the Republic: the word was not pronounced once, Wednesday, by Gabriel Attal during his weekly report of the Council of Ministers.

The “whatever the cost” referred to the aid plan deployed to support companies during the Covid-19 crisis: solidarity fund, partial activity, loans guaranteed by the State… Nothing to do, therefore, with the measures envisaged today, which primarily target households. And yet, it is indeed the same term that comes back, because it has become a symbol. Remember: originally, “whatever the cost” was a formula hammered out by Emmanuel Macron on March 12, 2020, at the dawn of the epidemic and the first confinement:

“The government will mobilize all the financial means necessary to provide assistance, to take care of the sick, to save lives. Whatever the cost. Everything will be done to protect our employees and to protect our companies, whatever it costs. All European governments must take decisions to support activity, then to relaunch. Whatever the cost.”

In this speech, “whatever it takes” is used three times, but each time as an adverbial subordinate clause: it is not a precise proposition, but a vague promise. It was only then that the expression was “nominalized”: it became a noun, whatever the cost.

It was clever of the government. On paper, it is neither more nor less than the label, the brand, chosen to name this set of measures. But like any label, it ends up producing effects. Behind the “whatever the cost”, we hear the idea that the measures would be particularly generous. They certainly were, but less than in other countries: the plan deployed by Spain represented 25 points of GDP, against 17 points in France. And yet, that did not prevent the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, from boasting on numerous occasions of having “the most generous policy in Europe”. We remember the word, and we forget to question the thing.

If, in the mouths of Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux and Gérard Larcher, the term did not seem particularly benevolent, it is because that is the whole problem of representations: they are linked to an era. If “whatever the cost” was valued during the crisis, since then it has above all become synonymous with a considerable increase in public debt.

However, let us not forget that it is not a precise name, but rather a simple rhetorical label. Once put into circulation, it is likely to be reinvested by political adversaries, and stuck on measures that have absolutely nothing to do with it. This is how this expression comes today to become a formidable instrument of disqualification. From the point of view of a politician, it could be difficult to oppose “measures to support purchasing power”. On the other hand, it is much easier to denounce the reckless spending of a new “whatever it takes”.

This is the whole danger of nominalizations: once released into the wild, brands can turn against their authors.