What is rigor? The word has two meanings. For a very large part of the French population and a large majority of its political leaders, rigor is associated with the notion of harshness, severity, austerity. On the other hand, for those of us who have scientific training, it is an essential quality of accuracy, of precision which allows us to construct reasoning. We are, unfortunately, very much in the minority.
This conflict of values around the same word has deep roots. Our education system, first of all, which from secondary school leaves far too little space for mathematics and then, at university level, for so-called “hard” sciences whose mere name makes them appear inhuman. Our public life then, organized around discourse, where scientists are considered too specialized, too rigid to understand problems which all (supposedly) fall within the human sciences. Our debates are therefore dominated by sociologists, philosophers, political scientists, with scientists being only subcontractors mobilized to respond to specific requests.
Am I exaggerating? I’m going to be factual: of the eight presidents we have known since the beginnings of the Fifth Republic, only one, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, had a scientific background, and that was far from being the worst. Of the 25 Prime Ministers, Elisabeth Borne was the only one to fall into the same category. As for the forty Ministers of National Education since 1958 (i.e. an average duration of around eighteen months for each), only 10% could claim scientific training.
The evolution of the study of the economy, a central subject for the good health of a country, is no less worrying. Economics, which developed especially in the 19th century, initially sought to be an exact science. Its inventors have never stopped studying, modeling and then asserting their respective theorems. The only small problem is that opposing ideologies, from liberalism to Marxism, have skillfully developed conflicting certainties. Economics is therefore not an exact science, at best a discipline that should be freed from all prejudice. And in particular, do not forget that future forecasting models are all based on data from the past, which necessarily limits their reliability. Unfortunately this is not the case. The best economists continue to fight for the award of a fake Nobel Prize, which makes them pass for scientists. Those who enter political life are most of the time dominated by their ideological vision which weakens their speech, made by this fact alone unconvincing by the majority of our citizens.
However, economics is essential, as a simple instrument for measuring reality which needs mathematics to be effective. However, it is not taught in college where we could explain what a household budget is (resources and expenses) then how we move to the level of a business and finally to that of the ‘State. Is it any wonder that the economy is misunderstood in a country where the majority of citizens have never received any training on this central subject? What would rigor bring us, in the scientific sense of the term? I would like to recall here a rule that has remained with me from my scientific training: the solution to any problem is in its statement. In other words, an accurate diagnosis is a prerequisite for action. We are very far from it and shamelessly practice, all parties included, a denial of reality.
The economy trapped by ideology
The most striking example is that of public finances. Where does our insurmountable deficit come from? For Marine Le Pen, immigration, which makes no sense. For the right, excessive state spending. Which ones should be cut? We won’t know. For the left, all sensibilities combined, due to the fact that the ultra-rich are seriously undertaxed, a fanciful theory invented by prestigious economists (Thomas Piketty and Gabriel Zucman) who present themselves as scientists and in fact confuse ideology and rigorous approach.
I will present my own diagnosis, established with rigor (in both senses of the word!). Social spending, which is very different from that of the sovereign State, should be balanced by nature since it is solidarity spending. However, they are heavily in deficit, amounting to half of our total deficit. Where does most of this come from (more than 60 billion euros)? The civil service pension system.
This for two reasons. This scheme has a very poor demographic structure, with 0.9 contributors for 1 retiree, compared to 1.7 for the entire population. For this reason alone, the salary contributions of civil servants, in the broadest sense of the term, cover at best only a quarter of the amount of pensions paid each year, i.e. around twenty billion euros out of a total of 90 (more than 3% of GDP). The balance, almost 2.5% of GDP, has no earmarked funding, which is absurd in a pay-as-you-go system. It is therefore the State which bears the burden. Which, due to lack of revenue, increases its deficit accordingly and brings it to more than two points of GDP beyond the European limit of 3%. An even more serious coincidence, this figure is approximately the order of magnitude of the public deficit excluding financial charges (what is called the primary deficit), the annual difference between public revenues and expenditure excluding debt interest.
Who among our political leaders knows this? Probably a tiny minority. Who says it? Person. So the problem, although difficult, is not about to be resolved.
*Jean Peyrelevade, polytechnician and economist, is a senior civil servant, banker and business manager. Latest work published: Reform France (Odile Jacob, 2023).
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