“With Marine Le Pen as president, our economic sovereignty would deteriorate considerably”

Chronic. A year ago, Marine Le Pen claimed in a column published in the daily Opinion that“good management of the public debt is at the heart of our sovereignty”. The National Rally candidate was at the start of the credibility operation for her presidential project, after the abysmal shortcomings she had shown during the second round debate in 2017 against Emmanuel Macron.

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The text was intended to be reassuring. “A debt must be repaid”she affirmed, while claiming to be “in line with post-Keynesian modern monetary theory”. Damn! Marine Le Pen, who four years earlier had stammered her plan to leave the euro and confused Alstom and SFRwanted to give the impression of knowing the mysteries of the European Central Bank and of mastering the policies making it possible to make the debt sustainable.

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Thirteen months later, on the eve of a new debate against Emmanuel Macron, a careful reading of his program shows that the seriousness claimed in this forum is already largely denied by his proposals. If she is convinced that a debt must be repaid, it would be an insult to her not to believe it: her Russian creditors are there to remind her of this regularly. On the other hand, regarding “balanced budget” promised by the candidate, we are very far from the mark. Once Marine Le Pen is in power, our economic sovereignty could deteriorate considerably.

Understated expenses, overstated revenues

To finance his program, the magic money will have to continue to flow in much greater proportions than under Emmanuel Macron. All the economists who have looked into his program come to the same conclusions: expenditure is systematically undervalued and revenue shamelessly overvalued, making the whole “practically unachievable as it stands”says the Institut Montaigne.

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“The catastrophism which consists in saying [que] if Emmanuel Macron is not re-elected, the sun will go out, the sea will withdraw and we will suffer an invasion of frogs, it no longer works”, answers Marine Le Pen. So let’s leave aside the ten plagues of Egypt to focus on the very concrete consequences that the election of the far-right candidate would have.

She claims to want “to return the money to the French”. It will especially indebt them more. Promising them shamelessly what they want to hear will quite simply result in a 4 point GDP deficit per year by 2027, or a hundred billion euros. In her 2021 column, Marine Le Pen claimed “a pragmatic approach to debt”. The term “irresponsible” would be more appropriate.

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