Digging into Livret A to finance defense companies? The idea is not popular, including on the highest floors of Bercy. So a proposed PS law aims to find a consensus solution: the sovereignty defense savings book (LEDS)…
Among the thousands of legislative proposals tabled or studied in Parliament (on the National Assembly side, more than 2,000 have been tabled since the 2022 legislative elections), very few come out of the closet to actually establish themselves as laws in due form. Remember that unlike bills, carried by the government, bills are tabled by deputies or senators.
Does the sovereignty defense savings account (LEDS) have a chance of seeing the light of day? It is a bill proposed by the PS senator from Val d’Oise Rachid Temal and by eight other socialist senators which puts this idea of LEDS on the table. No one knows what the outcome of this bill registered on February 20, 2024 in the Senate will be, but it has the merit of trying to find a solution to a poorly embarked subject: the financing of SMEs in the defense industry by drawing on (to borrow from these SMEs) in Livret A and LDDS funds.
Let’s resume the controversy, fast forward: “Will the money from your Livret A be used to finance defense? », headlined MoneyVox on November 8, since an amendment allowing the allocation of a small part of Livret A savings towards loans to defense SMEs had been integrated into 49.3. But the measure was publicized by the media, was not popular… and the Minister of Economy and Finance Bruno Le Maire opposed it.
Bruno Le Maire: “I prefer there to be a savings product dedicated to national defense”
“I prefer that there be a savings product dedicated to national defense, rather than diverting the Livret A from its objective, same thing for the LDDS”, declared Bruno Le Maire at the time. Ultimately, this amendment was censored by the Constitutional Council, not out of opposition in substance but because this measure had no place in a finance law.
Yield, ceiling…? To be defined by decree and order
Rachid Temal and the senators seem to have taken the minister at his word. So here is the sovereignty defense savings account (LEDS)at least the LEDS project, because this hypothetical savings product is only at the legislative proposal stage…
It would therefore be a new regulated savings booklet, alongside the Livret A, the LDDS or the LEP. Like these booklets, each individual could only hold one LEDS, the deposit ceiling of which would be defined by decree and a decree in the Council of State would set the practical arrangements (fixing the rate of remuneration, opening conditions, etc. .). And the payments would be allocated to the acquisition of financial securities contributing to the financing of the French defense industry.
In the series “Livret A(rmée)”, after multiple twists and turns in recent months, here is the episode of the attempted cohabitation of two librettos… At the same time, senator LR Pascal Allizard and around sixty senators have They tabled a bill directing a portion of Livret A savings to defense SMEs. And Horizons deputy Christophe Plassard and a dozen deputies did the same in the National Assembly. Continued to the next episode.