Debt and public spending, David Lisnard
Fiscal rules: Golden rule on the operating deficit, not on investment
Direction of change: creation of a scheme, compared with current law.
The lever. Rules governing the deficit and debt: European rules, golden rule written into the Constitution, programming act. Direction rule: ↑ tighter rules.
« cette « règle d’or » s’appliquerait aux dépenses de fonctionnement mais pas à l’investissement »1Translation by the editorsthis “golden rule” would apply to operating expenditure but not to investment
Encoding
No cost-schedule parameter for this position: see the costing for the reason.
Costing
Announced by the candidate
not announced
The programme does not cost this measure.
Published costings
none
No external costing of this position recorded to date.
Our calculation
lever that cannot be costed
Lever with no coefficient in the cost schedule: the position is compared, not costed.
Current law, sources and limits of the cost schedule
Current law. Stability Pact revised in April 2024 (EU Regulations 2024/1263 and 2024/1264): reference values of 3% for the deficit and 60% for debt; operational criterion = net primary expenditure path of the PSMT 2025-2029. For France, under the excessive deficit procedure since July 2024: reduction of the structural deficit by at least 0.5 points of GDP per year as long as the deficit exceeds 3%. Possible sanction of up to 0.05% of GDP every six months (about €1.5bn). In domestic law: LOLF, LPFP 2023-2027, HCFP.
Horizon. Not applicable.
Limits. Institutional lever: exit from or renegotiation of the rules, golden rule, exclusion of investment or defence (national escape clause). No static cost; encoded as direction of change. The escape clause for defence allows a limited deviation.
- Sénat, L'essentiel sur le RAA 2026, 2026-04: « Elle fait de l'évolution des dépenses primaires nettes ... le principal critère opérationnel ... une sanction financière pouvant aller jusqu'à 0,05 % de son PIB de l'année précédente, soit environ 1,5 milliard d'euros, tous les six mois »
- Fipeco, Les nouvelles règles budgétaires européennes, 2026-04-14: « cette trajectoire doit permettre de réduire le déficit structurel de 0,5 point de PIB par an tant que le déficit public est supérieur à 3,0 % du PIB »
How to read these amounts. These are static costs and revenues, with no feedback effect, over a full year: nothing on growth, employment or the revenue that economic activity would gain or lose. A higher net cost does not on its own make a worse policy, nor net savings a better one: each programme rests on an economic model (demand-led stimulus, lower compulsory levies, consolidation of the public accounts…) that the cost schedule does not settle. GDP itself measures a volume of activity, not well-being or the usefulness of what is produced. Economic models and feedback effects.
- Programme Nouvelle Énergie, « Être maître de notre destin ». Read the programme page.
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