The reports and the comments are plentiful after France poor economic results. The followed trend for twenty years is worrying due to a continuous and significant downgrade of the main economic indicators. After two decades shown by growth, an inflation reduction, the necessary industrial restructurings along with some mastery regarding public finances (the public debt in 2002 reached only 60% of the GDP) which had allowed France to come in the euro zone, the situation has not stopped to deteriorate: trade deficit and record public indebtedness, low growth and unemployment staying at a high level and a worrying de-industrialization. All these factors have leaded many observers to talk about the French decline.

But, in the same time, household wealth has not stopped to increase. The last figures published by INSEE indicate that in 2022, personal assets, after the subtraction of their debt, had reached 14 791 billion, i.e. an increase compared to 2019 by 2230 billion. The net value of the real estate properties represented around 8 000 billion and the financial assets more than 6000 billion. At the end of June, they have again increased to reach 6361 billion. Real estate share is falling for two years and is set off by the rise of the financial saving. Financial assets have increase by more than 100 billion per year. How to explain, at a time when some are talking about decline, that the French people are becoming so richer?

The decline concept appeals to two components, a structural phenomenon and a relative appreciation. It is through the comparison of the evolutions between the countries that can appear a divergence and can justify this qualification. France, for twenty years, is marked by a growing bureaucracy and a demographic transformation. The first phenomenon weights on the activity and on the public finances. The multiplication of the regulatory constraints hurts enterprises life, obliges them to hire people or to ask external suppliers which affects productivity. Public administrations and political institutions become fatter in order to elaborate these regulations and to make them respected. That has also a cost which has not been without link with the heavy degradation of the public finances.

The demographic transformation, with the fall of the nativity and the increase of the life duration, to the contrary, has not, until now, had effects explaining the poor economic results. It has contributed to the unemployment stabilization and has reduced the charges on young household. But the phenomenon, if it was going to amplify in the future with a significant and durable reduction of the fecundity, would be obviously a negative factor for growth and for the ability of the economy to grant satisfying life conditions for the oldest persons whose number is not going to stop to increase.

The other aspect regards the relative character of the supposed decline. Traditionally, France is compared to Germany, praised for its industrial success with its foreign trade surplus, its shared prosperity model in the enterprises which ensures social peace, and its management of its public finances. The major strategic mistakes made in the energy sector are going to put into question this positive assessment which guaranteed to it the status of a model : along with ageing faster than in France, the putting into question by the coming tariff restrictions of its external success and the threats on the car industry with the conversion to electric models and the superiority of the Chinese producers will also affect the country..

The United States, to the contrary, are going to increase their world position. But is the model transposable and can it be used for a comparison? Definitely not. First, thanks to the new fracking techniques for the production of oil and natural gas, the country takes profit of a support for its growth and offers to its enterprises the conditions for energy supply much more competitive than in France. The dollar rise has also a mechanical effect on the nominal value of the GDP which is used for the comparisons and it is going to increase with the unavoidable diminution of the interest rates in the euro zone to support growth. At last, nobody is worried by the huge deficits, internal and external, of the country and by its ability to finance them. The 10 years Bond spread is superior by 100 basis points to the French one and Washington sees there no alarming signal.

Comparison is not reason. The used figures must reflect the reality. The revenue of an American citizen is much higher than the French citizens one but these benefit from the gratuity of the schools and of very cheap costs at the university for their children and they have to pay a small share of their health expenditures. Regarding the level of taxes and employment in France and in Germany, they are the consequences of major differences between the two countries: a repartition system in France and a private capitalization one in Germany and the very higher level of part-time jobs in Germany.

The argument regarding the decline so is not convincing. It mainly seems to be used to make accepted unpopular measures in order to remedy to the country disequilibrium. But the remedies must be even more appropriated and correct the past mistakes instead of making them worse. The evolution of the household wealth also contradicts the thesis of the decline because it comes both from the increase of the assets value and from a high saving rate. If that value increases, it is because it reflects an always high demand on the long term regarding real estate, even if this one has weakened these last two years due to the rates rise. It also results from the consequences of enterprises high profits on their financial assets.

Household savings are rising especially because the revenues of a growing share of the population is increasing. The asked question so is not the one regarding the degradation of the economic situation which is a synonym of an impoverishment but about the increase of the inequalities. The population ageing contributes to it because old people who have seen their life level strongly increasing, are saving more because their consumption needs are less high. We have experienced these last two years saving rates at a record, above 17% of the gross available revenue, especially with the financial placements with a rate superior to 8% since the beginning of 2024.

The accumulation of the financial saving, a revealing signal of the country enrichment, might be taken into account in the reflections about the pensions system because the rise of the life duration is going to make closer the retirement age with the moment when a household inherits. For the same reason, it is useless to accumulate reserves in complementary pensions systems (near 90 billion in 2024) which concern workers having had remunerations above the average. It would be better to progressively increase the Social Security ceiling which would rise the receipts of the general regime in order to reduce its deficit.

The economic reasoning today is exclusively based on the flows (GDP, deficits) and ignores the evolution of the assets, to the exception of the public debt which leads to analysis mistakes. The economic policy practiced in France for ten years has increased the public deficits, without any results regarding growth and competitiveness but has favored the household enrichment. Instead of putting forward the phantasm of the decline, it would be better to find the reforms which would allow this enrichment to become less unequal and so to give back to growth the engines which are missing.