“I left public finances balanced,” maintains François Hollande, who wonders what “has happened since”

François Hollande criticizes the government’s line of defense which invokes Covid and the war in Ukraine to justify the slippage of public finances.

“I left public finances balanced”, supports Thursday April 4 on France Inter François Hollande, former President of the Republic, while France’s public deficit reached 5.5% of GDP last year, according to figures published last week by INSEE, against the 4.9% initially planned by the government. The former head of state assures that at the end of his mandate, he left his successor Emmanuel Macron with “social accounts in balance” and “public accounts below 3%”. François Hollande wonders what “that happened” so that we are in a situation that he judges “serious”.

The government partly justifies this slippage in the public deficit by the increase in spending caused by the health crisis linked to Covid-19 and the war in Ukraine. But François Hollande criticizes this line of defense, asserting that “all governments have experienced crises”. He mentions in particular the “subprime” in 2008 under the five-year term of Nicolas Sarkozy. For François Hollande, the current state of public finances results from a “increase in expenditure in the face of events that were not planned”without “structural or redistribution reform”. The former socialist president considers that “whatever it cost could no longer continue.” “It continued without distinction, without social selectivity,” he regrets.

Faced with the current situation, François Hollande therefore believes that “measures must be taken”, and that they “should have been taken several years ago”. “There are times when you have to know how to control the accounts”, says the former head of state. If he recognizes that “the figures are worrying”he estimates that “it would be a mistake to have an austerity policy all at once which would affect growth.” On the contrary, François Hollande pleads for “spread out this effort requirement” on “five years”. He also recommends “look at what is being done in terms of helping one or the other to avoid a sort of habit that has become established with whatever it takes.” He also wishes to “social justice”.

François Hollande criticizes a form of double standards with the unemployment insurance reform: “At the same time, we ask nothing of the wealthiest, of companies that have made considerable profits,” complains the former president. He denounces a “reform only of budgetary economy to the detriment of the most modest”. François Hollande finds “normal to ask companies, which have made enormous profits, to [prendre] their share in the contribution” to the general effort. He admits, however, that he “would be too simple to say that it is enough to tax fortunes and considerable profits to get rid of the deficit”. The former head of state sees above all behind this measure a way of bringing “social and national cohesion”. He considers in fact that when efforts are required “to all except the richest”, this leads to a “social crisis”.