Sitting in Paris bracing for the next French political crisis, I found a strangely fascinating table from the IMF. It gives government spending as a percentage of GDP for dozens of countries. Clustered at the top are several isolated microstates: Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Dominica and Micronesia. Counting only countries with populations over 150,000, the biggest spender was Ukraine, at 74 per cent of GDP. Fair enough — it’s fighting an invasion. But next in the table, at a stonking 57 per cent, is a country at peace (except with itself): France.
That number underlies the crisis. With France’s budget deficit hitting 5.8 per cent of GDP, François Bayrou, the fourth prime minister since 2024, wants to cut €44bn from the ever-expanding budget. Since parliament won’t let him, he’ll probably lose a vote of confidence on Monday. Then on Wednesday, protests and strikes aim to “block” an already blocked country. Why can’t France spend less? And where might this end?
Contrary to popular belief, France’s state wasn’t always massive. At liberation in 1944, many people lived on farms without even rudimentary public services, such as electricity or running water. Pensions used to be ungenerous. In 1970, the effective average age of retirement was 68, exactly the age at which the average French man (in an era when most workers were men) died. In 1995, six governments of developed countries were higher spenders than France.