She ended up “falling out of her chair”. Surprise, Marine Le Pen did not fully understand the grievances that were brought to her. “To be reproached for having an ethnicist vision… So there…” The president of the National Rally does not finish her sentence. Stammers, is surprised with a wave of the hand, then resumes the course of his press conference, as if nothing had happened, falling back on his feet. Clever. That day, she presented to an audience of journalists the strategy of her parliamentary group in examining the bill on pension reform.
And precisely, it is a detail of this “counter-project” of reform, widely taken up and communicated by the former president of the RN and her troops, which aroused this emotion. And if the solution to all the problems lay in the pronatalist policy? “If we don’t have children, you know very well that a pay-as-you-go system is considerably weakened”, justifies Marine Le Pen. On paper, the equation is quite simple: more children means more contributors for tomorrow, and more contributors is the solution for financing pensions.
In the hemicycle and on the sets, a large part of the RN deputies hastened to repeat the same formula over and over, in a now very predictable: “The babies of 2023 are the contributors of 2043.” Concrete argument and well-armed rhetoric, the almost indisputable formula quickly made the rounds of the debate. “It’s not us who say it, it’s François Bayrou”, defended Laure Lavalette bluntly, at the microphone of the Assembly. Under his cap as High Commissioner for Planning, the president of the MoDem wondered about the importance of demography in the social model. 50 pages of report, in which he highlights the lack of consideration given to the renewal of the population. “We are the only country in the world where pensions depend so much on our demographics,” it says. What largely reinforce the arguments of the RN. “If you put aside the birth rate, everything collapses. It’s the sign of the vitality of a people, it’s the sign of the vitality of a nation”, preaches Laure Lavalette. The member of the Var and spokesperson for the National Rally group in the Assembly outbids. She wonders about the lack of widespread debate on this subject. “No country in the world would refuse to invest in its demography. Unless perhaps it was in a diseased brain.”
Malthus and sewn mouth
A “blind spot” of the pension reform according to a large part of the deputies of the National Rally, who did not miss a crumb of this “absence” in the debates. A “denial”, according to the elected representative of Gironde Grégoire De Fournas, who worries about these “French families, who have desires to have children and who do not do so for economic realities”.
Flower bed of the right? In the ranks of the executive and the majority, the idea of a pronatalist policy was not unanimous. Worse, it scared some. “It can quickly become ‘Work, family, homeland'”, defends one of them. “We didn’t talk about it in the group”, reacts another, before continuing: “We see the pattern, if there are more people, there is more money for the system, but this n “It’s not a subject for us at the moment, confides this executive from the Renaissance group. Never has a public policy encouraged people to make more kids.” Similar story for Mathieu Lefèvre, Macronist deputy from Val-de-Marne, for whom the priority is elsewhere: “If you have a policy that takes effect in thirty years, you will not solve the problem. Everything is good not to talk about the real subject.”
Through Olivier Dussopt, the government finally opened up the discussion, preferring, like François Bayrou, the term “demography” to that of “natality”. Cautious, the Minister of Labor mentioned a “precious demography”, which should be “supported”. A balance sheet generally shared in the ranks of Macronie, which agrees there too, if not on the substance, at least on the form. “There is a nuance. Demography is the human presence. The birth rate is creating babies. It’s not the same”, retorts Mosellen Ludovic Mendes. The ball returned, the deputy Renaissance accuses the right of the hemicycle of instrumentalizing motherhood for electoral purposes, “to flatter their voters”, but also ideological. “It’s an almost xenophobic birth rate, he adds. That is to say, they want to make our descendants and not mix with the others. Their objective is rather to repopulate the France with white Catholics.”
“The Specter of the Great Gathering”
On the left, we acknowledge the blow by agreeing all or almost to the observation of the majority. Is the argument put forward by the RN really intended to provide solutions, or does it conceal broader ambitions? No doubt, for the eco-friendly Sandrine Rousseau: “They systematically come back to that, and behind, there is the specter of the great replacement.” If the deputy of Nupes sees there “the true face of the RN”, she sees there in the other direction a ready-made solution. Immediate. “If they want contributors, just open the floodgates of immigration. Even a little bit. But that’s not what they want, on the contrary.”
A vision from which the RN defends itself, with often independent variables. The shadow of the great replacement? A mirage for the Girondine Edwige Diaz. “It’s not even a term we use,” sighs the chosen one. “But it is certain that to populate our country, you have the choice. Either we make children, or we bring people.” Obvious answer. Surprising argument. So despite a large replacement – since the term is not used – the RN is worried about “social dumping” in the event of labor immigration. “A formidable competition, which we must be wary of,” warns the MP. Political phantasmagoria or banal hassle, other elected members of the party are less discreet about their fears. Hunt the natural… His constituency neighbor Grégoire De Fournas hides a little less. “What is the future that we want for the French population? It is absolutely necessary to renew generations, unless we assume the extinction of the population”, alarms the Médoc, without language of wood. The good and the bad hiders, then.
Quarrel impossible
Despite the political arguments, does the question of the birth rate have its place in the public space? And if so, are there any levers to encourage it? By listening to the different parties, actions are possible. Varied too. At the RN, it is proposed in particular “to exempt young people under 30 from tax”, “to re-study family allowances” or even to “create more places in nurseries”. Particularly economic proposals, to encourage births and respond to a “significant desire” for maternity. “There is indeed a desire for babies in France but times are tough, women are having fewer children”, advance Laure Lavalette and her colleagues from the RN. Part of the government is also working on the issue. “You have to look at the gap between the birth rate today (1.83 children per woman) and the desire for children, which is high (2.39 on average). My goal is to reduce this gap , because it is so many upset lives”, confides the Minister of Solidarity Jean-Christophe Combe. In this sense, he promises to “build a public service for early childhood”, joined by his colleague Olivier Dussopt, who indicates “opening a debate on families in the coming weeks”.
On the left, the debate is just as upset. The First Secretary of the Socialist Party Olivier Faure says he is in favor of “the idea of supporting families and making life easier for them”. However, he expresses a reservation on the place of women in this debate, wanting to be resolutely cautious. “Now if it’s to say that women should become laying hens again, I refuse. It just seems crazy to me.” Similar message, but more assumed for Sandrine Rousseau. “We are not wombs on legs just good to procreate and give birth to”, denounces the parliamentarian, worrying about a “rapid return to the past”. For demographers, the impact of “natalist” or “family” policies – depending on the schools – remains to be measured. If not to be avoided. Emeritus researcher at the National Institute for Demographic Studies (INED) and historian at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Hervé Le Bras is uncompromising: “The pro-natalist policy is magical thinking. do not work.” It is therefore impossible to guide or encourage births and increase fertility rates. “Policies that work are bad policies. And again,” puts the researcher into perspective.
According to him, one of the means of encouraging births would go through an overhaul of the work system, which would be more egalitarian. “Women want to have a life like men. So anything that facilitates the fact that women can have a career like them can facilitate fertility… We have children when we are fulfilled”, he adds. For his colleague Laurent Chalard, doctor in geography at the University of Paris-Sorbonne, the demographic study is also to be qualified. “Fertility is the sum of individual and not collective choices.” It calls for distrust of economic arguments in the incitement to birth. More effective than a tax cut: the mimicry effect. “If you really want to increase births, put families with 3 or 4 children on Netflix. It will work better.” A hint of humor as a solution, but which the academic thinks is more influential. The miracle equation – almost impossible – the children of 2023 will indeed be the contributors of 2043, but in due time. Dodo the child do, the child will contribute soon.