Crise euro, austérité, France et conséquences

John Mauldin vient de publier un article intitulé “L’austérité est un mot de 4 lettres en France”. En voici quelques extraits…France spends roughly 12.5 percent of its gross domestic product on pensions, more than most almost any other Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development member. (For reference, Germany spends about 11.4 percent of its GDP on pensions, and Japan spends roughly 8.7 percent.)

No European country is becoming more dispirited and disillusioned faster than France. In just the past year, the public mood has soured dramatically across the board. The French are negative about the economy, with 91% saying it is doing badly, up 10 percentage points since 2012. They are negative about their leadership:67% think President Francois Hollande is doing a lousy job handling the challenges posed by the economic crisis, a criticism of the president that is 24 points worse than that of his predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy. The French are also beginning to doubt their commitment to the European project, with 77% believing European economic integration has made things worse for France, an increase of 14 points since last year. And 58% now have a bad impression of the European Union as an institution, up 18 points from 2012. (Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge)

The IMF’s Article IV Report on France published before the elections draws up the indictment charges: a state share of GDP above 55pc (or 56pc this year), higher than in Scandinavia, but without Nordic labour flexibility.

One of the rich world’s highest life expectancies but earliest retirement ages, a costly mix. Just 39.7pc of those aged 55 to 64 are working, compared with 56.7pc in the UK and 57.7pc in Germany. “French workers spend the longest time in retirement among advanced countries,” [the IMF] said. (the London Telegraph)

France has the highest tax and social security burden in the Eurozone and the second lowest annual working time. There has been a sharp rise in unit labor costs, making France even less competitive.

These developments have not gone unnoticed in Germany. A report by one of the conservative political parties there (the FDP) said, “French President Francois Hollande was trifling with reform, scarcely making a dent on the sclerotic labour market. Which is true of course. Hollande was elected in May 2012 on a campaign to preserve the status quo and protect the privileges of the French.” (Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, the Telegraph)

Not helping is the fact that France had a very anemic “recovery” after the Great Recession (never more than 1% a year) and is now back in full recession. Which means that tax revenues will go down, not up, and that deficits will swell.

Debt servicing costs as a percentage of GDP have plunged in France from 3% in 1995 to 2% (today) even as the total amount of debt has risen four times. Low interest rates can be a thing of beauty if you want to lower costs, but when interest rates rise (and they would with a vengeance in the not too distant future if the ECB were not ready to step in, as the market clearly expects it to do) they can cripple a government already burdened with too large a deficit and unwieldy commitments. But without real reforms, how long will it be before the market sees France as another problem child, like Italy and Spain?

Austerity is a four-letter Anglo-Saxon – or even worse, Teutonic – word in socialist France, yet the market at some point is going to want to see a move toward sustainable budgets. Government bond investors are not philanthropists. They look for the least risk they can find. A realistic assessment will soon be made that France is no longer in the least-risky category.

France is on its way to becoming the new Greece. In 20 years, the Harvard Business School will do a case study on what not to do when faced with a massive fiscal crisis. France and Hollande will be Exhibit #1.

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