France and Italy: same structural economic problems, same difficulties in implementing the right policies?

There is a quite significant similarity between the structural economic problems encountered by France and Italy: low labour force skills, insufficient corporate modernisation and, as a result, low productivity gains and potential growth, high production costs relative to the level of product sophistication and market share losses , deindustrialisation, low employment rate. The Italian coalition government’s economic programme was criticised because it primarily consisted in stimulat ing household demand and no t in supply-side policies aimed at improv ing companies’ situation. At the outset , from the election of Emmanuel Macron in France, the focus was on the contrary put on supply-side policies (education, vocational training, corporate tax cuts and reduction in the cost of capital), but we are now seeing a shift towards policies aimed at stimulating household income, as in Italy. In France as in Italy, these policies to boost consumption cannot correct the country’s structural problems.