Post by @Obviouslywrong@lemmy.world

2026-10-22 02:40 UTC

The problem is that they have too much debt and they can’t just ignore it anymore. They can complain but they have to cut spending somewhere or increase revenue. Now they can raise the retirement age for everyone. Or they can take the money from the billionaires. But that still doesn’t get you closer to lowering the deficit which is very high well over 100 percent of GDP. That means the protests are really just complaining that France doesn’t have enough money but you can’t keep the spending going as is without a lot of drastic cuts. All you can do is cuts now or kick the can down the road and hope something changes. Or just default on the debt and say fuck it.

Replies (8)

@ynthrepic@lemmy.world 2026-10-22 02:52

Raise revenue you say? There’s plenty of wealthy people who could do with less wealth.

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@Lyricism6055@lemmy.world 2026-10-22 02:54

How does the billionaire and taxation problem in france compare to the us? I assume it’s more “fair” but I know basically nothing about it

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@Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2026-10-22 05:09

they can take the money from the billionaires. But that still doesn’t get you closer to lowering the deficit Username checks out

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@BestBouclettes@jlai.lu 2026-10-22 05:54

The current state of French debt is manufactured to justify budget cuts left and right. We’ve had Macron for 10 years and the only thing he did was to add 1000 billion to it, and increase the wealth gap. At some point we have to realise that these people are entirely responsible for the situation, and doubling down on their stupid neo liberal ideology will just make things a lot worse.

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@teslekova@lemmy.ml 2026-10-22 09:20

Yeah, so raise taxes. France is like a lot of neoliberal governments around the world, pretending that raising taxes when you have a structural deficit isn’t an option. Macron especially is being disingenuous here.

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@Cowbee@lemmy.ml 2026-10-22 10:08

Or, we could collectively own and manage production and distribution according to a scientific plan, without needing to stuff the pockets of capitalists that dominate the entirety of society.

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@kossa@feddit.org 2026-10-23 08:20

How is everyone alway like “either cut or tax”? Like, there’s a central bank. They can just buy out the debt. They did like crazy, during the financial crisis 2009ff, then again during the pandemic. Y’all with your “cut or tax” are mixing up your personal finance with state-level finances. That’s a totally different thing.

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@SippyCup@lemmy.world 2026-10-23 17:40

Username checks out. I can’t tell if this guy is serious or if he’s just, saying the most obviously wrong thing he can think of as a bit

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