France is broke and need to cut something like 130b from it's budget annually by 2030.
If they don't, bond yields will skyrocket making their fiscal pain even more pronounced. They need to raise taxes, cut retiree benefits and raise the retirement age.
Either France does it on their own terms or the bond market will do it for them.
Their social benefits have been much too rich for too long for an economy that isn't growing. It sucks for young people but the math is the math.
France needs a president that will explain that to the French people as most are not experts in bond yields and budget deficits relative to GDP. The last few presidents have tried and the people have responded by rioting.
Nah, they need to balance the budget, which means tackling tax evasion and fraud by the rich. This Rothschild's very own boy Macron has (obviously) failed to do, and it's about time France got a government to do it
The French government already spends 57% of its GDP. It doesn’t sound like much evasion is going on. Are you just outraged that 43% of the economy manages to avoid being seized by the grubby mitts of government?
Over 100 bn are spent annually on subsidizing low wages for corporates and other social charges reductions / tax credits to already profitable corporates.
You already have one of the highest tax burdens in Europe. If you add a wealth tax on top of that you'll kill whatever growth you already don't have. The wealth tax will not close the gap, and the reduced growth will start increasing the gap again since growth doesn't keep up with inflation.
There is no path out of this without some pain. At least make sure you have a future. Invest in your youth. Don't dump all your money into your elders, that's not a way to build a future.
Look, since you still don't get it, let me lay it out without any bullet points to distract you. France literally ran this exact wealth tax experiment for decades called the ISF, and it was such a total dumpster fire that they had to scrap it in 2017. The second the government started taxing people just for owning stuff instead of making money, rich folks didn't just stick around to pay up, but they packed their bags and bolted to Switzerland, London, and Belgium, taking all their investments, companies, and spending cash with them. And get this: the government actually ended up losing way more in income and business taxes than they ever collected from the wealth tax itself because the rich people were gone. On top of that, trying to figure out what a Picasso painting or a private company is worth every single year was an administrative nightmare that cost a fortune to manage. It completely tanked their economy, didn't even raise the money they wanted, and left everyone else holding the bag. So no, it's a proven disaster that already failed miserably in real life.
Let's say we agree on that, which we do not, what are the benefits of more invests for the regular people ? More invests just means more money for the same people over and over again. That's why people are rioting. There is money. It just always end in the same pockets, always.
This is nonsense. Taxes for the rich have been cut in France repeatedly leading to economic contraction, and have remained high for labor. You don't know what you're talking about.
Taxes have been cut? Where? The only thing that have been removed (actually changed) is the special wealth tax (« impôt sur la fortune »). We probably have the highest tax on the rich than any other country in the world, what is even your point..
Education Spending: France spends heavily on secondary education (lycées), with expenditures running roughly 28% higher than the OECD average for older students (ages 15–18), though primary education spending sits below the OECD average. [1]
TheCulture Pass(Pass Culture): The government provides young people (such as an €300–€500 digital credit for 18-year-olds) to spend on books, music, theater, and cultural events via the French Ministry of Culture Culture Pass initiative. [1, 2]
Vocational and Career Tracks: A large portion of upper secondary funding supports extensive vocational and technical training programs. [1]
Social and Canteen Subsidies: Regional authorities (such as Île-de-France) and school social funds heavily subsidize student meals and necessities for low-income families
1. Public Universities (State-Regulated Tuition Fees)The French government subsidizes the majority of the actual cost of public higher education.For students from the EU / EEA / Switzerland / Andorra:- Bachelor’s Degree (Licence): ~€170 – €178 per year.- Master’s Degree: ~€243 – €254 per year.- Doctorate (PhD): ~€380 – €397 per year (uniform rate for all nationalities).
France has never been so rich than in 2026. The problem is not the lack of money. Between 2017 and 2026 the assets of the richest families was multiplied by 5, from 200 to 1000 billions of euros in 10 years.
We have a repartition problem, and as in 1918 or 1945 after the WWs (far worse situation) they need to participate instead of robbing the social contract as they're doing right now.
ok you tax em and then next year comes around then what ? money in private ownership compounds way higher than ROI on gov assets. So you take away the 800b and then what?
Rich means nothing. Leftists use this a shock slogan. Every GDP grows with time. Right now economy in France is absolutely in the gutter except for big multi national companies that can afford to tax evade.
Creating a business right now in France is terrible. It’s one of the worst place in the OECD to open up a business. Growth is shit. Businesses are going bankrupt left and right.
life happens in the middle. there is no true capitalist utopia nor is the socialist utopia etc. the trick is finding the right middle ground where both can be leveraged to maximize humanity.
You would be astonished by how much we’re already taxed.. If I start from my raw income (it’s a company but let’s simplify) to what I earn at the very end, way more than 50% is taken.
They already tax the rich, considerably more than the US. It's not a revenue generation problem, it's a spending problem. France is the only developed country in the world where the average pensioner makes more money from their pension than the median full time worker.
The only way they fucked them was by not giving birth to enough young people . When they stopped having enough children they started borrowing from the future to live beyond their means .
You say that but France like many European countries have been living beyond their means. Everything is subsidized and government supported (from healthcare, pensions, transportation, education, etc). This worked when France had a smaller population and a bigger working class, but now with those costs growing, it's hard to keep up. The problem is though most people in France don't want to accept the reality that they can't pay for all this anymore. Both young and old aren't willing to make concessions.
It’s a lot more complicated than that. Their system worked when resources were plentiful.. now that isn’t the case and so it must change. Read a little instead of regurgitating whatever you hear the morons spouting.
I didn’t hear any moron spewing shits, all I hear is for years and years, the French will burn down cities protesting whenever someone tries to raise the retirement age (basically any policy that negatively affects retirement benefits). Reddit always cheer them on every time, nobody accepts that you can’t just pull out infinite money out of the system. Every single penny paying retirees come from the young generations working, and it’s so damn clear it’s not at a sustainable level. If it’s not sustainable, yet old people still refuse to ever accept any cut into their retirement benefits (like less payments or higher retirement age), then it’s clearly old people fucking over the next gen out of their greed. It doesn’t take that many steps of reasoning to come to that conclusion, you don’t need to read comments on reddit for one (which are always on the opposite side anyway).
this applies everywhere, especially former rich nations. US has a similar spot; the 60s, 70s and 80s had it best to take advantage, now current generations only get the end part with the service bill. France same. More will follow.
The old people weren’t that old when they got the benefits. If most people got what they ask for now, we’d be the old people fucking over the youth in the future. Hard times are coming that will make us realize these days aren’t so bad.
Boomers refuse to accept any changes to the pension system, while the left keeps demanding higher taxes and more social spending. At this rate, we're screwed.
Except that France is already one of the most heavily taxed countries in the world. We’re already well above the average for developed countries.
The problem isn’t “not enough taxes on the rich.”
The problem is that the money is massively wasted, that there’s waste and corruption at every level, and that we have a pension system that’s a ticking time bomb.
Raising taxes even more solves nothing when the state spends 57% of GDP and the results (schools, hospitals, security, infrastructure) are stagnating or getting worse.
It’s not a revenue problem. It’s a management and structural problem.
But hey, keeping on believing that “more taxes = more justice” when we’re already at the ceiling is intellectually comfortable.
Exactly and I didn’t hear any candidate for presidential election speak about that. It’s either remove every social progress or tax more they barely speaking about ai and job destruction or universal income.
Tax them 100% of their income and it still wouldn't make a difference. The size of the French state is simply too big, too many people collecting government welfare.
"Boomers refuse to accept changes to the pension system. " lol. I work in a retirement home. I have colleagues that are older than some of the residents.
We have elderlies that can't afford a house. Others that own one and can't afford to eat and yet are taxed almost two months of pension at the end of the year. How is that "refusing to accept changes"?
Basically. France is in late atage socialism where they ran out of other people's money to spend.
The problem is made worse by importing a ton of people who put even more strain on a social safety net that they never paid into.
🤷♂️
I was just there this summer. It's pretty meh. A lot of the city is run down. The locals are either really poor or really rich. There's no middle class. And if I wasn't a tall dude built like a linebacker and had the mind of a carnie, there probably were a few parts of the city that would not have been safe to visit
Went to St. Denis. Zero women anywhere. Did not trust my girlfriend walking around by her own because even when we were together we were stared down by every single individual like we don't belong, we were the only white people there.
I can relate and had the same experience as a French parisian. Only time I was genuinely afraid being beaten to death while watching my wife getting rapd before my eyes was in st denis metro. We ran out of the train before it happened, but it was definitely happening.
Aubervilliers Isnt Paris at all. Thats like saying you were going to Santa Monica and stayed in Compton but worse. Who told you to get an AirBnb there?
lol you kind of stayed in the shit area and then wandered around the even shittier areas near by … duh, it’s the bad part of town, like any city anywhere. I live in Los Angeles, you better believe there are neighborhoods that your white ass is getting mugged regardless of how big you are if you’re wandering around the streets at night.
The cultural of people that work in travelling carnivals. Kind of adjacent to grifters, pickpockets and the like.
If you're in the wrong part of Paris and look either like an easy mark, or like you wouldn't be able to put up a fight, youre either getting robbed forcefully or pickpocketed.
I tavel a lot all around the world and I notice the pickpockets. I also notice them noticing me noticing them. They know i know them, so they focus on easy marks.
the fortune of billionaires more than doubled over the past decade, while GDP rose less than 10%... seems there's money to spend, just not that of people who actually have the money.
The "fortune of billionaires" means near to nothing.
What people like Bernard Arnault really have is just a bunch of overpriced shares in a company that somehow still has a market for way overpriced goods (like the Luis-Vuitton handbags).
When people realize how much of a scam his industries are, he might not really hold much value in his hands...
It still gives him an enormous amount of real power that.normal citice's who are merely well off don't have, including the ear of anyone in government, a large share of France's private media and so on.
Besides he's not the only billionnaire, there's also Saadé of CGaCGM, one of a few international shopping companies, there's bouygues and lafarge, construction etc...
show me the numbers where their money would resolve anything?
common trope in USA amongst socialists. Take billionaire wealth, but they dont understand that that wealth would collapse minute was taken. Not only that, it's not even enough to sustain shit.
Look at any socialist/communist country in all of history. The corrupt inner party oligarchs take all the money and give table scraps to all the useful idiots that voted them in.
It's called sharing, I have a chronic decease and I would probably kill someone on the road because my brain would go out for a few seconds if I could not afford my epilepsy meds
You are also saying it is because they steal trough taxes but those 200 billions are not free cash, they are taxes credential, taxes we do not collect. And they are seperate from the removed taxes on salary for bosses of minimum wage workers, total exoneration of taxes up to twice minimal monthly salary since 2019
The reason we are giving them 200 billions is because we live in a neo-liberal capitalism, under a neo-liberal president and it thus means that the state is not considered an actor but merely a client of companies
But ill make the same offer to you as I did another commenter. If you sell everything you own and move to china, i will gladly buy your one way ticket.
HMU when everything is sold and yourr ready to move there.
you must be from the U.S, talking about linebackers etc. Yes, Europe is fading comparative to your nation. But to say France is 'run down', is just bonkers.
P.S. if France is so run down why do so many of you lot keep going there?
That's also really false lol. Ofc there's a middle class. And cities being run down is the biggest bs I've heard, and I went to most of EU, US, and CN...
The city? Which city. That's just bs.
Obviously there are less good areas though.
In absolutely every country, the US first. (And in most states...)
Using "the city" for France is insane though. It's not London.
I see. Paris wasn't directly talked about, so I failed to get it, mb.
I don't disagree that Paris has a lot of... How to say. Well, let's say, quite a gap between rich and middle.
That say, there are definitely a middle class. It is true that this middle class is currently having issues because of housing prices (which is partly a foreigner (not immigrants, I'm speaking about travelers.) issue - since so many houses are kept for that purpose.)
There's also a real gap between neighbourhoods. Even more than between people directly.
But:
They're not as poor as you think (except St.Denis, actually.). Paris is just that pricy. They get plenty or vacation easy and all literally because their revenue is WAY higher than the rest of France, so they're using the rest of France for cost efficiency lol.
A bit like east frenchies are doing with swizterland (work there but pay in France)
Second thing. Can you realize Paris is just not an actual good example. It's 2mil inhabitants. 12M if you take the IDF.
We're 69M. You cannot apply everything you see in a city everywhere. Paris, actually, is a joke to most of France as well. By joke I mean that it's literally the dream to no one to live there, only to visit.
All fair points, we're more in agreement than most people think.
I think where we diverge is the solution. More centralization and socialism will make this problem worse. There isnt a single historical example od a socialist-leaning system that wasnt corrupt with rich inner part members and a welfare class rhat got handed table scraps.
I could say the same for even a right wing system that is highlh centralized. But right wing =/= capitalist.
In true capitalism, the government doesnt manipulate the market by picking winners and losers by putting their thumb on the scale with incentives, regualtions and taxation. The market comes to an equilibrium through transactions of willing parties, not government interference. That is the only way to equalize things in a fair and democratic way.
To be fair, there are many things to do.
I don't think reddit is good though, as it'd be too long to speak about it... (We could write essays LOL).
I personally don't disagree that there are good ideas kind of everywhere. (I mean political parties).
I am, personally, extremely against bipolar voices. And I'm not center, I consider myself leftist (even a lot ahah) but that have no issues with taking right or even actually far right ideas either, because literally why not. I'm quite pragmatic.
I don't disagree at all that more centralization is an issue, too.
Anyway, my issue here is that some people speaks but are:
Way too alarmist, as the situation is urgent, but not that dire. The economy itself works quite well. Savings is extremely high, and if people unlock it, it'd actually have a massive impact. (And people forgets savings a lot. Let's not forget that, it's extremely influenced by socioeconomic, structural, and cyclical factors. (Economic uncertainty (country but also of the world.), insecurity (including financial, which is tied to previous point), purchasing power's expectations, employments, retirement, etc. But even more importantly : institutional trust.) I'm saying that because, the situation can actually change a lot... even without any changes except government. It's complicated to predict. (PS : I'm speaking about savings because it has never been that high. It's important to notice it, as it's 100% tied.)
More importantly, some are way too harsh. For example, cutting 150+bn per year is absolutely not necessary, and could have dramatic consequences, at least here in France. What is needed is a real cut - a cut big enough to slowly (not multiple decades of course...) but surely reduce the debt, and most importantly the interests. If you're too harsh, I assure it'll never work here. The GDP continues to grow, and show a solid resilience, despite really slowing down with all the crisis. (Now oil...). It all comes down to a highly diversified economy.
(Note the difference between economic resilience and economic dynamism.)
Otherwise, some of our systems need a structural reform. But doing it in a middle of a crisis, especially for some of them, is not only socially unfair, but politically counterproductive. Imposing more burden now (immediate burden) is just ground for it to face significant backlash later, enough for a repeal. Here, at least.
Well. I know that message looks shit. Honestly speaking, I hate writing on mobile+reddit... The format makes me write like shit, with many errors, I'm not sure... Prefer PC.... It's convulated, I know.
That said if you want the real big issue France is facing soon, it's youth leaving the country.
80% wants to live somewhere else, with 33% considering it very strongly.
That's the death of any country there
Ridiculously off base... The problem stems from the Euro being mandated to be equivalently exchanged across the various economies of the EU... Its the same thing that happened to Greece, and is absolutely not 'because socialism.' if you actually think that this is because of socialism, when its roots are due to capitalism, then that's just ignorance.
Actually, you're half right. But the EU and Euro isnt a capitalist system, its an authoritarian, centralized, socialist system.
There is nothing capitalist about the morass of EU regulations the EU imposes, nor is there anything capitalist about forcing a currency/means of trade on people, devaluing their currency.
If you need an explanation on why the EU is not socialist then you aren't ready for this topic and no one is obligated to waste their time teaching you something so basic.
there probably were a few parts of the city that would not have been safe to visit
paris has had rich and rough parts forever lol. the rich west / working class east split goes back to the 1800s. haussmann rebuilt the center (where the poors used to live) in the 1850s-60s and pushed poor people out to the edges, and the city’s been split along those lines ever since
its not some new thing that started with immigration. people were calling the east side sketchy before anyone’s grandparents were born
no doubt theres been an uptick in some violent crime in recent years, but in general, homicide and violent crime have been declining in europe for centuries. frances modern murder rate peaked in the early 1990s (like the US), and thefts are down too. 1800s paris would have laughed at current crime rates, not to mention 19th century accounts of paris talk about how filthy it was, at least until haussmann rebuilt the city.
in general, homicide and violent crime have been declining in europe for centuries.
Sure, if you go back centuries, you're working with a much smaller denominator and a much less educated group of people. Only a few centuries ago, we didnt have indoor plumbing and people used to throw poop out the window...
That said, current statistics are also... problematic. Things get recategorized, miscategorized, or often go completely unreported.
There was a recent situation in the US where stats showed that violent crimes dropped in some cities - turns out, those cities just refused to keep reporting statistics openly, so the number looked lower. Or like many metros in Cali where theft under certain dollar amounts are no longer reported/investigated/etc - and the threshold has gone up in recent years, so thefts have appeared to decrease (when in actuality, they increased).
Um, there are plenty of middle class people in France. I am one of them and I work in tech. The level of equality is much higher here than in the U.S. Do you actually know any French people? Dude is really pulling things out of his ass here.
As a proportion of the total population, there are fewer, and the standard of living of the french middle class is lower than the average american middle class.
How do you figure that? Because our standard of living is higher than a lot of people we know in the U.S. Even though our salaries are lower. Because we own our own home we recently remodeled in a nice area, travel internationally, pay little for quality healthcare (we live in an area that has a surplus of doctors), take 7+ weeks of vacation’ a year, and have a pretty good life. As do most people in our circle. If you are basing the standard of living on just salary well I know people who make six figures in the U.S. who can’t afford to buy a home in an area that’s not far from where they’d like to live, so…(I’m American and French) . Its all relative. But to say there is basically no middle class you are basically pulling information out of your ass
Let's see what the hungry Grampa marx says about it in the book that created the word capitalism:
Capitalism is a mode of production. When a business has investors that don't need to work in the business and are taking the dividends.
Then on the other hand you have socialism. Another mode of production. Here, the business is owned by the workers of that business, not by investors.
Now you can differentiate between socialism and capitalism! Gluckwunsch!!
In almost every country. The business in the stock market are the 76% of the GDP. They are 0.001% of all the business in the country.
The governments try to satisfy these business. That's the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. If these business go wrong, then the GDP falls, there are massive layouts, etc...
That's the reason the taxes increases go to the small business and normal people. That's the reason why Macron has entshitified France so much.
Retirement has been raised to 68 years old those last years. It's difficult to raise higher, and lots of people die before reaching retirement, or live only 1 or 2 years after.
There are ultra-rich people, whose funds had been multiplied by 15 those last decades, and still refuse to pay taxes, even if they will never get them poorer, but government prefers whacking poor classes and middle classes.
Otherwise, we have "research" tax credit that cost us dozens of billions a year without ANY return.
I'm pretty sure we can arrange something.
French people aren't against any hardship. But it should be shared. You can't ask people to work until 70 years old while giving massive subsidize to company that broke all record of dividend while firing massively. It's just not fair.
Math is the math, imagining an exponentially growing economic system on a planet (I’m not just talking about France but all of the planet) and expecting it to be maintainable.. it’s just stupid.
I have a idea . Let bring in a bunch more people and help them by giving them benifits .
Also of they could have a culture that makes it difficult to assimilate that would be great. Also due to the low income and culturally incompatibility nature of the new comers have crime go up which then requires more police resources.
It's tough for us, because I understand the economy, I understand that my country (France, therefore) is really in deep trouble, we have a socialist model that has been unsustainable for a long time, m But we've spent too much time doing nothing, and now we're at a point where, yes, I, a Frenchman, agree with cutting welfare benefits, delaying retirement, and changing the model, But even if I'm in favor, no one will be able to include that in their life, it won't happen, and yes, I agree that social security for health, aid, and other benefits are an advantage. Something really good, but our country can't sustain it; but how do we explain that to everyone, how do we make them accept it? It's impossible to change an entire country. Generations of habit, way of life, and pride have now been seen as a right, something owed to us; our country has benefited from it for far too long to make it possible to simply remove it, the state is implementing reforms to gradually resolve the problem, but the biggest ones don't pass because they are too direct or incomprehensible for the public
I’m sure the tax revenue is not the problem, it’s how it’s used. I’m not from there but even I heard of French bureaucracy. The whole system is not efficient.
Western Europe was too comfortable to care about efficiency and innovation for too long, it’s time to pay the price for it
What about the idea of cutting the amount of money that France is spending on its military on supporting America's wars around the world, including Ukraine? Citizens all over the West are being told that there are hundreds of billions of dollars lying around to spend on wars but that there is no money for funding their education and social services for which they pay with their taxes.
Americans have been told for decades that there's no money for better healthcare and social services but there are trillions of dollars available to fight Israel's wars in the Middle East, pay for the war in Ukraine, and pay for military bases all over the world. Something's not adding up and people are increasingly angry about the way that spending is being prioritized by the out of touch elites.
Yeah and our country is gonna get even more poor because those retards break and burn everything. And guess who's money is gonna pay that with taxes????????
We're one of the most taxed country of Europe, this is sickening. People are dumb
French government is already sucking out around 44% of GDP through taxes, so taxes are already too high. Then France takes around 5% of GDP in debt to cover it's budget. Then there is around 75€ billion in interest payments this year.
They really need to cut budget, but whenever they try to cut anything there is political opposition, riots.
Investors lost trust in French ability to repay it's debts so interest rates are going up.
When somebody tries to explain situation to French people, they just screech "tax the rich" then burn stuff down.
France is already broke, we are just waiting for it to default on their loans so we ca make it official.
That is greatly exaggerated (that video too).
130b is absolutely not necessary, except if you want to be very fast, which is more detrimental (because of social issues) than anything else.
That’s a lot of certainty for someone who presents an estimate as fact. The 130 billion figure depends on assumptions about growth and interest rates, and the figures from the Court of Auditors, the HCFP, and the OFCE are not identical.
“Either France does it, or the markets will”: France is currently borrowing without any trouble, with strong demand for its debt. The risk exists, but using the market as a bogeyman mainly serves to avoid debating the choice: who pays, and for what.
And that’s where your message falls flat. You talk about “too generous” benefits without a word about revenue, tax loopholes, or the tax cuts of recent years. The numbers are the numbers, of course, but deciding who bears the burden is a matter of politics, not arithmetic.
The French don’t need anyone to “explain” their obligations to them. Many understand them very well and simply reject an unfairly distributed burden. And as for the “riots,” the 2023 protests were massive but overwhelmingly peaceful.
France doesn’t need to raise taxes, we already have the highest taxes in the world. What we need is to reduce the cost of our administration, increase productivity, reduce the number of public workers and pay them better. Indeed we also need to raise retirement age, but also change the system that was not conceived for an aging population with less children.
And finally, we need to cut a huge number of social aids that are paying more than actual work and condition all aids to people actualy contributing to the country.
Bond defects are artificially created by a capitalist economy where only next quarter matters. And let me tell you, blaming immigrants or increase the taxes will not solve a thing it is just the scheme of rich people to get away with the fuck they have been doing for decades.
It is time to call things with their name, what you just wrote it's just fascist dirt, even if you don't realise it.
There is only one solution to the current global crisis, which is to make pay people who deserve to pay - with whatever mean necessary. The problem is actually simple, they give you a complex answer because they know they are wrong.
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u/us1549 5h ago edited 2h ago
France is broke and need to cut something like 130b from it's budget annually by 2030.
If they don't, bond yields will skyrocket making their fiscal pain even more pronounced. They need to raise taxes, cut retiree benefits and raise the retirement age.
Either France does it on their own terms or the bond market will do it for them.
Their social benefits have been much too rich for too long for an economy that isn't growing. It sucks for young people but the math is the math.
France needs a president that will explain that to the French people as most are not experts in bond yields and budget deficits relative to GDP. The last few presidents have tried and the people have responded by rioting.
Great explanation of France's fiscal crisis
https://youtu.be/Uje_KSCzJJc?si=rUPmEbJjsPG-TMXu