I hope that we shall here authorize the columnist of l’Express to talk, for once, a bit about himself: I practice many professions at the same time, which feed on each other. Economist, banker, manager of an international institution, amateur conductor in my leisure time; these activities nourish my thinking as a writer and journalist.
In addition, I agreed on several occasions to compose and direct a reform commission. One that I moderated at the request of a left-wing government, in 1998, led to the Licence-Master-Doctorat reform known as DML, now used throughout Europe. Then another, at the request of a right-wing government to propose reforms of economic structures.
Each time, people from all political views have come together to speak on behalf of future generations, those who do not yet have the right to vote and who are not represented in the process of public decision, but by the constitution and its preamble.
Each time, the decision was to reach a unanimous agreement. Because everything is not just a conflict between right-wing and left-wing: there is also an opposition between before and after, between the preservation of vested benefits and the preparation of the future.
Once again, in the report that the committee that I chair has just made, we applied these principles.
Inevitably, we are displeasing at the same time those who do not want to cut spending, and those who do not want to raise taxes, which, in total, ends up making a lot of people.
We will please, I hope those who understand that we cannot continue permanently to live, financially, socially and environmentally off the backs of the next generation.
Still it is necessary that, beyond statements of intent, they are ready to face the consequences: for example, reducing the budget deficit to 3% of GDP in 2012 is a goal shared officially by all the French political class, which does not prevent them from protesting when we say that it requires 25 billion of savings or additional tax per year (if growth is 2% per annum) and even more if it is lower.
And also when we say that the current pension reform is inevitable, but unjust and incomplete, or when we say it is urgent to reform the status of job applicants or headmasters, to extend the Great Paris until the sea, to control our access to raw materials or adopt a European Ministry of Finance.
It is in no way a policy of austerity, or a questioning of the importance of public expenditure. But instead the strengthening of the effectiveness of public action, in the service of efficiency and social justice.
Of course, if I had written this report alone, I would have stressed other points: in particular I’d have proposed to move faster towards the tax reform in order to be able to cut less on social spending.
Nevertheless: this document proposes an effective and fair program. It protects the weakest and in particular the children, it gives, for the first time, a realistic and consensual way for ten years. We can no longer ignore that it is possible to pull this country out of its rut.