And don’t get met started and the appalling graph showing our dear Presidents' sustained commitment to defund public education.

So no, high levels of spendings are not the root of all evil. Only discussing spendings is a political choice. Unfortunately, this political choice is continuously portrayed as “the voice of reason”. The same voice of reason we hear since 2017 and that led to the actual crisis.

Everything else equal (easier said than done, but indulge me), the primary deficit would have been far smaller if revenues were maintained at the 2017 level, slowing down debt accumulation.

We can see that Pre-COVID budget cuts got later compensated to face the pandemic: the average spendings over the period remain at the 2017 level.

But the levels of revenues have steadily decreased, in particular due to wealth tax and income tax reforms that benefitted the most affluent households.

Important discussion but biased conclusion. High levels of spendings AND low levels of revenues fuel the debt.

Since 2017, the government bet on reducing both. Using INSEE data, here is a quick look at government spendings and revenues.