“We do not fall in love with a growth rate”, cried the youth in May 1968. In the absence of love, the word gave birth, fifty years later, to a varied and creative political offer. In the presidential campaign, we find decreasing, “altercroissants”, “post-increasing”, advocates of “small growth”, and of course green growth. Supporters of growth for what it is – an increase in collective wealth – much less. To believe that this economic growth, which successive governments have all aimed to maximize, has become a divisive, ambiguous dream, to be handled with care.
A few months before the elections, a dividing line is in fact emerging in the political debate, between an Emmanuel Macron dreaming aloud of a growth of “12% or 13%” by 2030 during a back-to-school seminar, and a Jean-Luc Mélenchon who affirmed in 2012 “Forbid the word“ growth ””. “Today, for me, there are three major political choices on the table, there is the choice of degrowth, there is the choice of decline, and there is the central choice that Emmanuel embodies today. Macron “, summed up Bruno Le Maire, the Minister of the Economy, in mid-October on Europe 1.
Growth as a political objective is no longer a given, the country itself is so divided. “In 2021, half of French people say they are in favor of more growth and that absolute priority be given to job creation, while the other half defends another development model with the objective of preserving resources, notes Frédéric Dabi, Director General of the French Institute of Public Opinion (IFOP). In 2017, the former were in the majority. “
Traditionally, environmentalists are the least comfortable with the idea of growth, seen as globally harmful to the environment – the more we produce, the more we consume, the more we destroy it. “GDP growth as it has been declining for decades is very carbon-intensive, consuming materials, unequal, with less and less habitable land, and competition that can become conflict over resources,” explained the candidate of the Greens, Yannick Jadot, in The world in November. It is a decrease in well-being. “
A very homogeneous political offer
Long productivist and convinced of the need to grow in order to redistribute, the left has become more cautious, especially since the emergence of climate issues. “Anne Hidalgo is not waning, explains the mayor of Rouen, Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol, in charge of economic questions for the socialist candidate. The subject for us is altergrowth, and what we put in it. ” His rival Arnaud Montebourg considers it necessary to arbitrate between polluting activities and others – “We need decrease in certain sectors and green activities which must increase”, he explains in an interview with The gallery. Same philosophy with Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of La France insoumise, who also offers a “Green rule” : “Not to take from nature more than it can reconstitute”, he explained in Release in September.
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