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Higher education and research, Jean-Luc Mélenchon

Research, share of GDP: More public investment in research, no figure

Direction of change: increase, compared with current law.

The lever. Targeted research and development spending, public and private, as a percentage of gross domestic product. Direction rule: ↑ greater research effort.

« Rehausser le niveau d’investissement public dans la recherche »1

Translation by the editorsRaise the level of public investment in research

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

not costed

Increase in public investment in research with no amount or target: nothing to cost. The same page provides for « supprimer le Crédit impôt recherche au profit du financement des universités et instituts de recherche » [“abolishing the research tax credit in favour of funding universities and research institutes”] (€8.1bn in 2026 in the cost schedule): a redeployment whose redistributed share is not stated. Neither the gain from the abolition nor the new spending is counted, so as not to count revenue without the use assigned to it.

Current law, sources and limits of the cost schedule

Current law. The target has been 3% of GDP since 2000. In 2023, gross domestic expenditure on R&D stands at 2.18% of GDP: 1.44% for businesses, 0.74% for government, the lowest level since 1980 (SIES). The research programming act 2021-2030 applies.

Horizon. full year 2032, €bn/year

Limits. 2023 GDP derived: 61.5 / 0.0218 ≈ €2,820bn, hence 0.1 point ≈ €2.8bn (low value). Nominal GDP in 2032 is projected at €3,500bn-€3,700bn (assumption of about 3% nominal growth per year, not sourced), hence €3.5bn to €3.7bn. If a candidate's objective concerns total GERD (DIRD, 3%), only the State-financed share counts (budget appropriations or research tax credit): the public share is separated from the share expected from businesses. Rule on public bases (18 October 2026), the same for all candidates: a target of 3% of GDP that does not state its public share is read according to the Barcelona objective (European Council, March 2002), under which « les deux tiers de ce nouvel investissement » [“two thirds of this new investment”] come from the private sector: one third of the increase, from 2.18% to 3% of GDP, is public, i.e. (3 − 2.18) / 3 ≈ +0.27 point of public research spending (similar reading: 1% public out of 3%, i.e. +0.26 point). When the text gives its public share, that is what counts. The research tax credit, public funding of business research, is not counted here: it falls under tax expenditures.

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.

This lever in the method · Costing for Jean-Luc Mélenchon

  1. L’Avenir en commun, édition 2025 (La France insoumise), version 1 of 28 January 2025, p. 24. Open the document at this page.

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