The government has just presented on October 12 its large investment plan of 30 billion called France 2030 plan. A plan to support growth and "
finance our social model
" tells us the President of the Republic. The plan is distinguished between well-defined objectives (for "
decarbonisation
", for nuclear power, for healthy food, for the development of biomedicines, culture, space and seabed exploration, etc.) for 19 billion dollars. euros and support measures (for securing strategic raw materials, for the formation of new industrial sectors, to support start-ups, etc.) for 14.5 billion euros.
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Everything suggests that a good part of the 30 billion comes from a great recycling of credits already voted and not yet spent: unused credits of the program of investments for the future 4 for 9 billion euros. Another ten billion comes from the recovery plan of 100 billion (11.4 billion euros of investments). There would therefore only be around 10 billion euros of truly new investments, of which around 4 billion euros will be voted by amendment in the 2022 budget under preparation. These 4 billion should appear under the mission "
investments for the future
" with the European label "
important projects of common European interest.
»(PIIEC,) which will make it possible not to have to derogate from European Union law on public aid.
Operation takes the lion's share
The total of the plan officially amounts to 33.5 billion euros (including 4 billion of equity) but of which only 4 billion voted by this government from 2022. Within the 454 billion euros of annual expenditure of the State, it does not weigh heavily and we can see how tiny the state's investment is.
If we go back a little in time, we see that the State funds devoted to investment are extremely low: 11.5 billion in 2016, 10.5 in 2017, 12.6 in 2018, 10, 6 billion in 2019… About 3% of the expenditure.
A straw when the operation takes the lion's share.
What to conclude?
That the government has now realized that its emergency and stimulus measures have started as a priority to inflate the “
exceptional
” operating
expenditure
- as is often the case in France - and that it is necessary, with 4 small billion euros in 2022 try to bail out the potential growth of France as a matter of urgency, which is still as weak as ever.
This “
big
” investment plan, drowned in the floods of operating expenses, is not one.
It would be just a lambda investment if France were a country that only borrowed money to invest and not to operate.
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Fortunately, local authorities are bound by the following rule: no debt apart from investment, they also invest in proportion more than the State: 59.8 billion of investments within 289.7 billion of spending or 21% of their spending (5.4 times more than the State) ... It remains to be seen whether the small volume of billions of investments actually injected and the additional deterioration of our public balance for 2022 by 0.2 point expected (-5% of GDP) will indeed lead to an increase in the potential growth of our economy in the medium to long term. Nothing is less sure. It is time to cut back on how it works to really invest in the future, far from the effects of announcements.
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