Re-elected President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron has several economic and social issues on fire. During the campaign, the candidate had set ambitious goals.
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Restore purchasing power to the French in the face of inflation; reform the financing of pensions; reindustrialize the country while respecting the imperatives of ecological transition; relaunch the nuclear program… Several economic and social issues await Emmanuel Macron and it is up to the re-elected president to lead the boat to the end, and above all to give coherence to all the action by identifying priorities.
The purchasing power issue is difficult because the president has no control over inflation as such. Its only power is to limit its impact on our daily lives. Freezing gas and electricity prices, fuel discount, inflation compensation: what is called the “tariff shield” is already substantial with 26 billion euros on the table. Not to mention campaign commitments. Are in the pipeline: an exceptional law on purchasing power from this summer to increase retirement pensions in particular, an increase in social minima and the salary of civil servants, a new tax-free bonus for employees and a food check for the most modest.
Is this program feasible in the current financial and budgetary context? Further than the “whatever the cost”, the main lever in the next five years for the Head of State is full employment, that is to say an unemployment rate between 5 and 5, 5% against 7.4% today. More French people at work means more purchasing power and more tax revenue for the State through employers’ and employees’ contributions.
According to economist Patrick Artus, co-author with Marie-Paule Virard of the book To end the decline (Odile Jacob), when we look at the employment rate (the proportion of people who have a job among those who are of working age), this rate in France is 67% compared to 76% in Germany and 81% in Sweden.
Substantive work will be necessary to raise the bar: reindustrialization through innovation, but above all training and taxation; education and training to increase skills; lowering production taxes (taxes levied on turnover even before paying corporation tax) to allow companies, in particular SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises), to achieve the objective.