2023-06-02 11:30:05
When he heard Bruno Le Maire talking about “cooling of public spending” in April, his blood boiled. Christian Eckert, the former Secretary of State in charge of the budget of François Hollande (2014-2017), took up the pen to pin these vague promises of unquantified and even less detailed savings by the current tenant of Bercy. “The left in power was harassed by the right and the economic press, giving lessons in budgetary savings. Today, the same people have become mute,” he pours out in an article published on his blog on May 7, denouncing a “deluge of billions”.
“Everything had to be documented to the millimetre, Eric Woerth and Gilles Carrez [anciens présidents de la commission des finances de l’Assemblée nationale] kept asking us to account”he sighs today, convinced that the reduction in deficits desired by François Hollande, who aimed to achieve 50 billion euros in savings, has condemned the left.
Since France has not voted for a balanced budget since 1974, no government can award itself the prize for being the most economical. But tax cuts, favored by the right and by the current majority, which has reduced them by more than 50 billion euros, tend to be judged less harshly than spending, in that they are perceived as the means of to restore economy. So much so that the left tends to be taunted more readily for its management of public funds when it is in a position to govern.
“The left is traditionally defined by an attachment to public services, the role of the state, a high level of social protection and redistribution, observes Pierre Moscovici, President of the Court of Auditors and former Socialist Minister of the Economy. The right, on the other hand, was savings, enrichment, a less extensive public perimeter, less redistribution. Historical reality has nuanced this opposition. »
The right has not always drastically reduced deficits and spending, the left of government has converted to a more serious management of public finances, he continues, quoting the Popular Front which in 1937 began the “pause” of reforms social, or even the turning point of “rigor” taken by François Mitterrand in 1982.
The good pupil Jospin
The image of a spendthrift left also finds its source in the period of the oil shocks. “This representation is not totally unfounded for the period that starts in the 1970s, because it is when the welfare state is put in place”, notes the director of Cevipof, Martial Foucault. In France and elsewhere, the parties of the left conquered power with the promise of a social State which will correct the effects of the crisis and in particular unemployment.
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