Was there “more public spending under Emmanuel Macron than under François Hollande”?

For the leader of the Republicans, things are clear. Onne “will not lower taxes if we do not lower public spending”. Invited on LCI this Wednesday, January 5, Christian Jacob castigated the mandate of Emmanuel Macron, who would have emptied the state coffers. According to the elected on the right “never have public spending exploded as much as under Emmanuel Macron”, who would even do “more than François Hollande”. What is it really?

As a reminder, public expenditure is the sums disbursed by the State, but also social security administrations, local authorities and administrations and organizations attached to them, as recalled by INSEE. These can be linked to operating or redistributive expenditure, such as family allowances or pensions, but also to investments. However, in 2020, this indicator has indeed reached records, according to data from the institute responsible for the production, analysis and publication of statistics in France. As shown in the graph below, public spending reached 61.6% of GDP against 56.7% at the end of the socialist president’s mandate.

Nevertheless, Christian Jacob makes it clear in his remarks that he is only interested in “public spending before Covid-19”. Well Named. This indicator was particularly impacted by the “whatever the cost” strategy put in place by the government at the start of the epidemic to avoid an economic crisis.

However, stopping at the figures for 2019, Emmanuel Macron actually does better than his predecessor if we take into account this indicator as a percentage of GDP, in the manner of INSEE. While at the start of the mandate, public spending reached 56.6% of GDP, this figure has continued to decline for two years, falling to 55.4% in 2019, according to the same source. That is to say a level lower than that of the end of Nicolas Sarkozy’s mandate! That said, the former head of state then had to deal with the banking and financial crisis of 2008.

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