The succession of bad figures concerning the French economy since the beginning of the year, zero growth, inflation above 2%, unemployment on the rise with a rate back above 8%, trade deficit that is not being reduced and finally public deficits and debt at worrying levels, has not given rise to sufficient reflection to identify the causes and suggest solutions. This is all the more disappointing given that major elections will now be less than a year away.

The discourse boils down to transferring the reasons for these obvious failures to others, those that preceded it (everything began to go wrong more than forty years ago, with the arrival of the left in power...) or abroad, the crises caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the war in the Middle East. It is obvious that the international environment has aggravated the difficulties of the French economy, but these existed long before the outbreak of these crises.

First of all, there are the one-off errors, even if they have had serious consequences. The abandonment, under pressure from a handful of activists, of the Notre-Dame des Landes airport by the Ayraud government, deprived a region in full industrial development of an international connection that was very useful for its continued development. He also encouraged ultra-minority groups to launch mobilizations against promising projects. Other examples include the closure of the Fessenheim power plant at a heavy cost caused by the loss of revenue from electricity exports to Germany and the decision to reduce nuclear production in the future. The government reversed this absurd choice five years later, but it had serious consequences by demobilizing a promising sector that was one of the strengths of French industry.

But there was much more serious with decisions that reflected a real ignorance of the functioning of the economy, in four areas: pensions, family policy, wages and the choice to give priority to supply to support growth to the detriment of public finances.

The debate on pensions is distorted by a lack of knowledge of the system for collecting and distributing contributions. Firstly, classifying contributions and their payment to retirees in the general scheme as public expenditure is a contradiction. It is a "public circuit" that ensures the functioning of the system, but the pensions paid to retirees are in no way a public expense. International comparisons that place France as a country where taxes and public spending are excessive are therefore distorted.

On the question of the balance of the general scheme and the measures to be adopted to restore it, there is also a denial of reality. This deficit is artificially created by the State, which encourages the accumulation of surpluses in the supplementary schemes (100 billion euros for IRCANTEC and AGIRC-ARCO) to the detriment of the general scheme by setting a ceiling on contributions for the general scheme that is too low. These surpluses are justified by indicating that in the event of a crisis, they would guarantee payments to pensioners. But this is not true, because if this happens, the financial markets would fall and since reserves are essentially made up of financial assets, they would disappear.

Another example is family policy. Today, in France, as in most developed countries, there is a drop in births. The birth rate has fallen to 1.65 children per woman, whereas it had long remained above 2, which placed France at the top of Europe. In the meantime, the family allowance system and tax policy have continuously penalised households above a certain standard of living in favour of families with low resources. But this method of redistribution is absurd. Those who have the means to raise their children in good conditions are discouraged and those who will have difficulty ensuring it for their own are encouraged. Family policy loses twice since the former will have less incentive to have it and the latter will never be sufficiently supported financially. We cannot therefore ignore indefinitely that this family policy designed to encourage the birth rate has led to the opposite result in relation to the objective sought.

The management of social security contributions is the result of the same error of assessment. The State has chosen to reduce charges on low wages while advocating reindustrialisation resulting from better competitiveness. But there are fewer and fewer low wages in industry, which instead requires the use of highly qualified personnel. The beneficiaries are service activities, which are not subject to international competition. This new burden on public finances, which have to make up for the deficits of social security schemes, has therefore had little positive effect. Conversely, the existence of a ceiling encourages companies to curb wage increases for their qualified staff that they need the most, which affects recruitment. As with family policy, this policy must therefore be reversed by ceasing to artificially favour low-skilled jobs and by abandoning what has been called the "low-wage trap".

Finally, the supply-side policy initiated in 2013 with the CICE has been at the origin of an unprecedented increase in deficits. Public debt has increased by €1,000 billion in ten years. As has been observed, this had no effect on the trade deficit in manufactured goods, which was its raison d'être. Nor has it caused a fall in unemployment, the rate of which has changed little. On the other hand, the reduction in social security contributions has mainly allowed large groups in all sectors of the economy to pay a significant share of them to their shareholders via dividend increases and share buybacks, which have reached a record level, as well as to their managers.

The flaw of this policy is that it is not targeted in relation to the objectives set. It has benefited hypermarkets, banks and consulting or advertising activities much more than the industrial fabric that is at the heart of any project aimed at restoring competitiveness and initiating a process of reindustrialization. On the other hand, its cost has been considerable, but this does not prevent the employers' world from asking for more through the reduction of production taxes.

The origin of these errors often comes from the search for contradictory objectives. For the family as well as for salaried jobs, a logic of reducing inequalities has been inserted. We prefer to support poor families and staff employed at the bottom of the ladder. But this is not the way to revive the nativity and facilitate the emergence of success in the industry. Similarly, to give the image of austerity, we want to force employees to work longer when other solutions are possible. But we forget that companies no longer recruit from a certain age and even part ways with their older employees

We cannot pretend to continue indefinitely policies that fail and, above all, to blame their predecessors or the international situation forever in France. But the arrival in power of new leaders frees them from these constraints. If they carry out an objective analysis of the weaknesses of the French economy and if they identify the causes and in particular the mistakes made, they will be able to remedy them. These are the responsibilities that will fall to the next elected officials.