The French economy is on the rocks, in a move which threatens to derail president Hollande’s economic reforms. The Observer‘s Kim Willsher reports:
The French leader has been hit by soaring unemployment figures, further factory closures and job losses, and plummeting popularity on top of growing fears that he and his Socialist government are failing to address the country’s problems. Members of the opposition right-of-centre UMP have accused them of being “amateurs”.
The news is bad, both for Hollande, and for proponents of revenue-side austerity. It is probably too soon to write-off the effects of the controversial 70 per cent tax rate – the pernicious effects of which are supposedly flight of high-net-worth individuals, rather than just a retardation of growth per se – but at the same time, it is clear that Hollande’s agenda is, at best, no better than Sarkozy’s was.
Despite the unpopularity of those revenue-raising measures amongst the economic elite, a meeting with members of various international organisations today – including the IMF and OECD – will reportedly focus on supply-side reforms “to improve France’s competitiveness on the world market and restore confidence at home and abroad”. The French labour market, with its ring-fenced working hours, worker protections, and strong unions, is frequently seen as being counter-productive to economic health.
The other major reason why the OECD and IMF are unlikely to press too hard on the question of high marginal tax rates is that, despite the fact that it has led to Hollande’s government being seen as a standard-bearer for the left, they still fit very strongly into the narrative of “austerity”.
The socialist government has made much the same pledges to be “realistic about the deficit” and practice “fiscal restraint” as we are used to hearing from all the parties in the UK. Where it has differed is in the method by which it has tried to reduce the deficit, focusing on increasing revenue rather than decreasing spending.
While this has driven some economists, like GWU’s Veronique de Rugy, mad, it is a perfectly fair application of the principles behind austerity. What it also does, though, is expose the contradictions between those who genuinely desire to reduce deficits, pay down debt and “win the confidence of bond markets”, and those who have used those as a convenient excuse to argue for shrinking the state.
Whether-or-not revenue-based austerity is as effective as spending-based austerity, however, it is clear that both are austerity. To those who have argued that, in a recession characterised by depressed consumer confidence and low aggregate demand, the state needs to temporarily push for deficit-funded spending, the bad economic news for France is yet more evidence in favour.
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