The importance of issues relating to public deficits and France's debt in the debate is excessive and has the consequence of diverting the attention of both the media and political leaders from the real issues facing the country. Dramatization is a well-known method of pushing through if not accepting unpopular measures. It reaches its climax today when the possibility of the IMF being placed under supervision or even defaults is raised. The fault lies with the French who do not work enough and who take excessive advantage of an overly generous social protection system.

International comparisons are then used for the sole purpose of demonstrating the accuracy of this diagnosis and reference countries are chosen to support these claims. But this argument has two weaknesses. First of all, their choice is arbitrary. By omitting to mention the United States, Japan and the United Kingdom, whose public debt and even public deficits, at least for the United States, are much higher than those of France, we lose much of the scope of the argument. As for the countries chosen, mainly within the euro zone, they have definitions of the public sector and therefore of their debt, which vary, which makes comparisons lose a lot of relevance.

The best example is that of pension systems. In Germany, it operates on a funded basis within private bodies and contributions are not fully included in the compulsory deductions. If a private scheme is in deficit and in debt, this is not taken into account in the calculations relating to public finances. Discussions, particularly at the OECD, which have been underway for many years to harmonise public accounts, have still not been concluded, which makes international comparisons unconvincing.

In this context, does France encounter difficulties in financing its deficits each year, to which must be added the refinancing of securities that have reached maturity? The answer is no. The rating established by the three main rating agencies is one of the best (AA) even if it is accompanied by a negative outlook, as for most indebted countries. The best proof lies in the ease with which the Agence France Trésor, which manages the State's debt, raises capital on the financial markets. Each medium- and long-term bond offering is generally oversubscribed three times. Thus, on June 5, the requests received by the Agency reached 33 billion and the Agency raised only 12 billion. A similar phenomenon is observed every week for Treasury bills.

Does the country's high debt lead to excessive interest rates? No. The ten-year rate is more than 100 basis points lower than those imposed in the United States and the United Kingdom. As for the gap with Germany, always cited as a reference, it is stable at around 70 basis points despite the sharp increase in the budget deficit in recent years and the political instability created by the dissolution of the National Assembly a year ago. Even legitimate doubts about the government's ability to include the announced savings in the 2026 budget and to have them voted on by Parliament in the finance law have not had an impact on the State's financing conditions, as the latest auctions have shown.

The ratios used to measure the public finance situation include GDP in value terms as the denominator. However, and this is a new fact, France has had the lowest inflation rate in the euro zone for several months. The method of calculation chosen is therefore unfavourable to it since tax revenues, and in particular VAT, bring in less while GDP, also calculated in value, will increase even less. In this context, the government deficit and public debt-to-GDP ratios will be more difficult to bring down to the levels corresponding to the Maastricht criteria. But this does not affect the confidence of the financial markets, which have taken this new fact into account.

The alarmism about the level of France's debt is therefore unjustified, but it has the consequence of obscuring the real reasons for the problem. For the political forces, with rare exceptions, everything is the fault of the French who do not work enough. However, the main responsibility for the situation is the State. It was he who created a costly territorial millefeuille. It is also the government that has given rise to several hundred spendthrift public bodies without, with rare exceptions, having achieved the expected results. Finally, it is the government that produces legislative or regulatory texts every year that increase the costs of companies and poison the lives of households.

There is alarm about the rising cost of servicing the debt, but little attention is paid to how it is managed. Two examples show that a large part of these additional burdens could have been avoided. There was no obligation for the State to issue securities indexed to inflation and even less to inflation in the euro zone, which we have seen is now much higher than the rise in prices in France. The bill is going to be steep. In 2026, 2027 and 2028, the indexation charge on these loans will be at least €3, €10 billion and €4 billion.  Nor was there any obligation when rates were very low to issue securities with high issue premiums that reduced cash requirements in the short term but carried over high rates to future years. The Court of Auditors, always very motivated to judge public action, could perhaps take an interest in the practices of Agence France Trésor.

Another example, which could trigger a major political crisis, is the issue of the deficit of the general pension schemes in the private sector and contract workers in the public sector. The state has a real obsession which consists of delaying the retirement age to reduce the deficit. We could accept this if companies kept their employees and if there were no other solutions. However, the unemployment rate for the over 60s is very high and is only getting worse. A deficit will thus be transferred to another scheme, unemployment insurance. Above all, there is another solution. The supplementary schemes, AGIRC-ARCO and IRCANTEC, have accumulated nearly €100 billion in surpluses. However, it is the State, by limiting by a ceiling the share of contributions on wages allocated to the general schemes, which is at the origin of the deficit of some and the surpluses of others.

The ageing of the population, due to the decline in the birth rate and the increase in life expectancy, will have major consequences for social protection systems. At the same time, the French economy is moving towards activities requiring an increasingly qualified workforce, which will be better and better paid and which, as experience shows, will remain in business longer. While there is obviously no question of seizing part of these reserves, it is absurd to practice a policy that encourages their accumulation and increases the deficits of the general schemes.

Debt is not a threat, but it is used to push through unpopular measures. This could be understandable if the State had no other alternatives. But this is not the case. It is its organization and practices that need to be reformed. This will take time and that is why we must not delay.