You warn in the book that, uh, it's a mistake to see this as a pure budgetary crisis, that it's a manifestation of a deeper crisis.

The question of the budget and the public finances is at the heart of the more complex problems that we have in France.

Why? Because it happens that public expenditures, including social, non-social, whatever, are very high.

If you compare them to other European countries, you see the French public expenditures are fifty-seven and a half percent of GDP, whilst, uh, the average of, uh, the Eurozone, including France, by the way, is fifty percent.

So the difference between fifty and fifty-seven and a half percent is seven and a half percent, and seven and a half percent is an enormous figure.

I had considered that the problem, it could be simplified in the following way.

France has a seven and a half percent of GDP excess public expenditures.

... than 2024.