Asia has ne er really ceased to be dynamic

Se eral countries and international institutes recently raised their growth orecasts. Is your reading o the situation as positi e

Reco ery remains ariable geometry. Asia has ne er really ceased to be dynamic. Its weight in the global economy is growing, and e en i China appears to be on the erge o o erheating, the entire region is a ery important element o stabilization. In the United States, we are still at the stage o the "technical reco ery" since two thirds o the growth in the ourth quarter are related to the act remo ed rom that businesses ha e less storage than be ore. But signs o a more sustainable reco ery is increased: household consumption has resumed its ad ance to the second hal o 2009 and the in estment which was collapsed now appears to lea e. In Europe, we entered also in this phase o technical reco ery. In rance, this reco ery relies, urthermore, on a basement o consumption that has ne er strong, e en at the worst moments o the crisis, which has kidnapped us rom our neighbors. In December, Insee anticipated a ery gradual reco ery in rance, with a growth o the order o 0.3 to 0.4 per quarter by the next summer. This orecast is still rele ant.

No risk o relapse so...

A priori non-, but the crisis will lea e traces. Need to eri y that the phase o reco ery which we are seeing is well rooted. In rance, the last sur eys are not signs o deterioration e en though we must remain igilant. Past experience shows that, in the case o major crises such as that we ha e just experienced, restart phases are o ten slow. The challenge is to ensure that this slow reco ery phase is not too long, because i reco ery lead airly quickly o er a period o sustained growth, the danger would be permanently "lose" people too long remained out o the labour market.

How will e ol e unemployment

To restart the economy, the employment situation will impro e. We should distinguish between the United States and Europe. Here, the destruction o jobs are less important than the United States in a period o low economic, but the rate o return on the labour market is lower in the reco ery phase. In rance, the economy will continue to destroy jobs in the irst hal , but at a rate much lower than be ore.

How to continue to support the acti ity while engaging in a reduction in public spending

He must ind the proper setting. It in ol es both the inancial and monetary policy and iscal policy. One can reasonably think that monetary and inancial conditions remain long conduci e to growth in Europe as in the United States. There ore, margins o manoeu re will start to open to gradual rebalancing o public inances. In the rench case, the remedy is in large part by better control o public spending. The issue is do not all into a trap "Ricardian" where the act o accumulating ery large public de icits worried households and businesses and would lead to surépargner. Without clear isibility, it could lose both ways: growth ad ersely a ected by the rise o precautionary sa ings and a lack o control o public spending.

Nicolas Sarkozy has loaded you, with Paul Champsaur, a work on the e olution o public inances or thirty years and their perspecti es on the next decade. What is your irst diagnosis

O er long period, it is ob ious: iscal policy in rance has been a problem rather than a tool. Rather, it helped to ampli y economic luctuations, especially high phase o the cycle. And it has led, in total, on a continuous dri t o the weight o public debt in GDP.

The number one goal is to regain control o the budgetary instrument. In this ield, the largest errors were committed in times o high conditions, where Go ernments ha e tended to reduce tax rates and increase spending, by postulating that the days would last ore er.

These policies ha e contributed to exacerbating the phases o economic o erheating. And reduced the margin or manoeu re o iscal policy to support acti ity in the lower stages o the cycle. They inally strongly contributed to the dri t o public debt that we obser e in rance or se eral decades.

Can the State ind 50 billion euros in sa ings here in 2013

The rance has made commitments to Europe in the reduction o public de icits. Other European countries, as the Netherlands or the Sweden, led in the past, operations o rebalancing o public inances a ter crises ery serious. Better control o public expenditure is possible e en i the rench experience was not always conclusi e.