Amid the doom and gloom about France's political crisis and the public deficit, our guest maintains that the country is still economically attractive and still the second power in the European Union. Clément Beaune is France's High Commissioner for Strategy and Planning, a former secretary of state for European Affairs and a former minister-delegate for Europe in French governments. He supposes that the current political fragmentation will not disappear with elections in the years to come, and urges French political forces to find the kind of compromises that have enabled coalition governments to function in other European countries.
Beaune recaps how France has burned through three prime ministers in the space of a year, and offers his analysis. "Since the snap elections in 2024, we have a parliament which is fragmented into basically three big political forces: on the left, in the centre and on the right or far right," he explains. "And in any parliamentary democracy across Europe, there would be a kind of a toolkit or toolbox to discuss, to find compromises, maybe to have a roadmap for a few months, at least on the budget in particular. In Germany, in Italy, in Spain, in the Netherlands it would be kind of normal, natural. In France it's new, but we have to get used to it because I think that this fragmentation will not disappear, even if we would have elections in the years to come. This is not our political culture and habit in France, and we have to find a way through."
Is the French budget deficit harming France's standing in the EU? "I'm hearing a narrative now which is 100 percent negative in the French debate and in our neighbours' press or political debate," Beaune answers. "Of course we face difficulties. But between saying there are difficulties and saying that everything is wrong ... it is not true that we have problems in all economic areas. We remain a country with a strong attractiveness. We see that with foreign investment remaining high in France. France is still the second power of the European Union. Of course we also need to be humble and lucid about our difficulties. We are in a difficult situation regarding public accounts in comparison with other EU countries. And we have to reduce the burden of public debt."
We turn to the work of Beaune's commission, which he concedes has been impacted by the political crisis and paralysis in the French parliament. "I think having a long-term policy unit is very important in these times of instability or short-termism across France and Europe," Beaune asserts. "In this political instability, it's important to have some places across government where you try to make proposals. To give you an example, I think we have made a very clear analysis of the demographic crisis that we are going through. I think the French public is not sufficiently aware that, for the first time since the Second World War, we will have more people dying than births in France this year. And this is a very strong wake-up call. We are making proposals for a pro-birth policy, if I can put it like that. We are also making proposals on economic migration, which is a sensitive issue but a necessary issue. We are also talking about competitiveness, because if we have a workforce which is more limited, we need to find other ways, including robots and so on, to be more competitive, to face international economic competition."
Beaune explains that his Commission makes proposals with the European dimension in mind, "because we cannot think only nationally about demographics or reforms. We saw with the Covid crisis that we would not have saved as many jobs and companies in 2020, in 2021, if we had not delivered a European recovery plan for our economies. We need [European] sovereignty in terms of health and production of key equipment and medicines. The same for AI, the same for electric vehicles. I have this European DNA."
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