Economic crisis, financial crisis, debt crisis – there has been no shortage of adjectives in the last four years to describe the crisis affecting most of the developed countries and, most particularly, those of the Old Continent. Like many European countries, France faces a difficult balancing act, in which it must improve the state of its public finances to reduce (or at the very least stabilize) the cost of servicing its debt, without hampering the dynamics of economic growth, which is itself essential in the long term to reduce the state’s indebtedness. In such a context, what are the French economy’s prospects for growth and what levers can be pulled to achieve it?
Drawing on various recent reports, Charles du Granrut begins by presenting the various projections for the development of economic growth in France over the next decade or two, stressing that the general trend is for moderate growth. He specifies the sectors in which the largest part of job creation should occur, while stressing the great fragility of the public finances in this low-growth situation.
Drawing on the teachings of economic history and on recent literature, he goes on to analyse the role which technical progress, the main engine of growth in this context, might play in re-stimulating the French economy, particularly in two major areas: industrial revival and green growth. At the end of this detailed analysis of the sources of economic growth, it has to be said that France is going to find it difficult to adjust to a mediocre long-term economic situation in a climate characterized by an increasingly vexed relationship between society and technical progress.
