The truth about France’s national debt – and why solidarity matters most

Everyone’s always talking about France’s rolling financial crisis. 

Radical reform of the state’s income/spending has brought down more than one government, but it is worth pausing for a moment to make sure we understand the issue. 

Right-wing, free market, small-state commentators repeatedly tell us that the spoiled French want to live beyond their means and are not willing to support politicians who will administer the necessary medicine.

Are voters ignorant, or in denial? I suggest they are more often than not suffering from ‘narrative incomprehension’: the syndrome by which intelligent people do not understand the reasoning of those who would tell them what is and isn’t true.

For a start, the analogy of a nation to an individual is always fallacious. You and I might have to balance our bank accounts at the end of the month but macroeconomics is different. 

States borrow money. Their budgets are complex, involving forecasts and predictions.

Secondly, cutting public spending is not that easy. Which service is non-essential? It is always easiest for politicians to deprive the weak and powerless of their share while appeasing the most vociferous interest groups.

Thirdly, people are not foolish. When told they must accept austerity in their own best interest they cannot help but notice that some branches of the state seem to be flush with money: the military, for instance. 

Fourthly, while public money is in short supply, individual wealth at the uppermost level never seems to diminish.  The harbours of the Mediterranean are as full as ever of super-yachts. 

Is there a solution to France's national debt?

When this is pointed out to the archetypal advocate of state belt-tightening, he or she will respond that their owners are the wealth creators of society who create the jobs; who should be thanked; and who deserve to enjoy the rewards. 

We should be wary of such lionising. 

Some of the jetset may be entrepreneurial philanthropists but others have made their dosh from the kind of international financial speculation that impoverishes states under the global capitalist system.

Our hypothetical defender of capitalism will also warn that if the rich are asked to pay more tax they will leave the country.  He might offer a statistic to prove this really does happen. 

Beware of such figures because they usually turn out to be based on dubious or blatantly prejudiced sources. 

There is no mass flight of heroic employers dedicated to doing good deeds.

Even if it is true that “x thousand wealthy people decamped last year” rather than do their moral and patriotic duty to help people less fortunate than themselves – which is the purpose of a tax system – it suggests that the problem is not what we are always told it is, the “ballooning” public sector. 

We should not blame the struggles of the state on hard-working men and women who expect to have days off (public holidays) every now and then, on children from underprivileged backgrounds who want an education to give them equal opportunities as the offspring of the rich, on poor and disadvantaged people expecting a helping hand in the most difficult moments of their lives, or on a modern society investing in good healthcare for all and subsidised public transport which will ease the climate crisis.

No, what’s going awry is that France is suffering from an ethos that promotes greed and selfishness. 

This has created a caste of milli-billi-trilli-gazillionaires who live above society rather than feeling emotionally a part of it. 

The cure for national debt is simply national solidarity. 

“From each according to his or her means” is an unbeatable maxim – even if that means a few of us having one less luxurious yachting holiday than accustomed to.

Is France's political and financial situation of real concern for you? Let us know at letters@connexionfrance.com