Lhe increasingly high weight of public debt in France leads experts from all sides to wonder: can this chronic over-indebtedness turn into a financial crisis? Even Keynesian economists – who defend the use of public spending to support the economy – are beginning to worry about the risk of a loss of control. Regularly, in order to dispel uncertainty, economists study the crises of the past, to find remedies for today’s difficulties. Historians sometimes view with skepticism the parallels drawn between past financial crises and the current situation. How can we compare historical periods with such different economic, financial, monetary, political, social and geopolitical configurations? However, we can do it, but on condition that we take into account all the facts and analyze them over time.
Since the Ancien Régime and until the middle of the 20th centurye century, episodes of high debt were mainly linked to war: the war we wage, the war we prepare for, the war we repair. The debt was mainly financed by national savings, successfully mobilized by the issue of Treasury bonds from 1915 or by long-term loans (Pinay, Giscard, Balladur, etc.). Certainly the call for foreign borrowing existed, but it was punctual and limited. Today, as in the past, the French public sector manages to finance itself on the markets without encountering any real difficulties (except the rise in interest rates), but the balance of its debt has nevertheless changed significantly: the share subscribed by French savers now represents only half of the total.
Today’s debt levels are certainly very high (more than 100% of GDP) but lower than the peaks of the last three centuries (around 200%, or even more). The fact remains that in the past public debt, in points of GDP, quite quickly returned to an acceptable level in a few years, often helped by inflation and devaluation (when it was not by default, as in 1720 and 1797). Whereas today the high level of debt has persisted for several decades, without stabilizing, and even less decreasing.
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