When a former financial pundit denounces the misdeeds of “financial capitalism”, it can make you smile. But at least he knows the subject well. Former financial director of Société Générale, Crédit Lyonnais, then founder and chairman until 2023 of the European asset management giant Amundi (nearly 2,000 billion euros in assets under management), Yves Perrier lived in front row seats, for forty-five years, to the evolution of world capitalism.
To analyze the profound changes that led to the French economic decline, he joined forces with doctor of political philosophy François Ewald, a leading specialist in the welfare state, with the aim of drawing recommendations. Which ones? Their handiwork What political economy for France? (L’Observatoire, 352 pages, 23 euros) displays its ambitions with this subtitle: For a new State-business-citizen pact.
For the authors, the major fact of the last decades remains the disappearance of the strategist State. The Colbertism of the Pompidou years gave way to an unbridled growth of French multinationals, whose capital “in the hands of Anglo-Saxon pension funds”and which consequently embraced from the 1990s the neoliberal codes from the United States, between the race for profits, relocations and crazy remuneration of the leaders.
Disastrous strategy
The rise in social inequalities, in the wake of globalization and the financialization of the economy, has been repeatedly denounced. Mr. Perrier and Mr. Ewald focus on the question of the efficiency of this production model. Has France fared better than its rivals? No, the reverse happened. This strategy proved disastrous for the country by accelerating its deindustrialization.
From now on, the weight of industry in the French GDP is equivalent to what it is in that of Greece, well below Germany or Italy. Is it serious, doctor? Yes because “it is first in industry that added value is created”hammer the authors, who point to the vicious circle generated: the loss of wealth has resulted in a drift in public finances, so that the State can heal the social wounds of deindustrialization.
If the diagnosis is relentless, the message is however intended ” optimistic “. Mr. Perrier and Mr. Ewald call for a return to the old recipes of economic policy, those from before the nationalizations, when France was still capable of implementing a gigantic nuclear program. The strong comeback of nations, observed since the crisis due to Covid-19 and reinforced by the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, offers, according to them, an opportunity to restore to the State its role of strategist. Especially since climate issues also require planning for the choice of infrastructure or major industrial orientations. However, no public action will be effective without a unifying “pact”. This implies that private actors integrate the general interest more into their governance and that citizens accept to make sacrifices in the name of the economic recovery of the country. Extensive program.
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