2023-10-12 16:00:04
Trying to define the economic doctrine of the French right in 2023 means coming up once morest an almost systematic response: « En reconstruction ». Competed by six years of macronism, shaken by the emergence of populism breaking with its ideological fundamentals in Europe and the United States, weakened by its long distance from power, the right recognizes that it is losing its bearings in economic matters, yet its traditional field of predilection.
In 2016, the candidates in the primary of the UMP (movement which has since become Les Républicains, LR) competed with each other on liberal proposals – end of the 35-hour week, slimming down of the State, reduction of fiscal and social constraints, even claiming, like François Fillon, their connection with Margaret Thatcher. Seven years later, whether it is public spending, the role of the State, reforms, the European project, trade in a world that is fragmenting, it is difficult to find a line.
In recent months, LR deputies have voted once morest pension reform or once morest the trajectory of recovery of public finances presented by the executive, while proposing new expenditure almost every time the budget is examined, in particular to protect households once morest sharp rise in energy prices. Until recently, some of them expressed their hostility to the privatization of Aéroports de Paris, or to free trade treaties with Canada or Mercosur, described as“economic error and ecological horror”.
“Convergence of programs”
“I think that the Republicans do not have an economic doctrine today, explains historian Gilles Richard, a specialist on the right. If they had one, it was that of Valérie Pécresse, a Europeanist liberal right. But this right can no longer ignore the weight of the National Rally which is at the gates of power. » In reality, this “right there” is embodied today by Emmanuel Macron, forcing the Republicans to shift their focus on societal issues such as immigration.
The markers of the traditional right have been swallowed up in macronism: the attention paid to questions of competitiveness, the valorization of work, of entrepreneurship, the criticism of “assistantship”, the promotion of structural reforms, reductions in taxes. “No one has pursued a supply policy as interesting as Emmanuel Macron since Balladur”summarizes the essayist Alain Minc.
To this difficulty is added “a form of convergence of the programs of the government parties towards the center over a long periodobserves Vincent Pons, professor of economics at Harvard Business School. In a context of high globalization, national policies are in competition ». In France, “we have a left that is less and less left on the economy, and a right that is getting closer to it on societal issues like homosexual marriage and abortion”, he believes. It is François Hollande’s left which makes the competitiveness pact and reduces costs by 40 billion euros. Before him, Nicolas Sarkozy had to increase taxes following having lowered them under the effect of the subprime crisis which caused deficits to explode. “Have I become a socialist? Maybe “he then admitted.
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