What can be done to sustainably reduce social tension in France?
One can try to reduce social tension in France by increasing wages, but they have already increased faster than productivity; by increasing government transfer payments to households or by lowering their taxes, but the public debt is already 100% of GDP. Structural remedies for social tension must therefore be found. This could include in particular: The implementation of macroprudential policies and real active housing policies, which would make it possible to stabilise real estate prices and prevent the levy on household incomes caused by rising housing costs; The creation of pension funds and life insurance funds invested significantly in equities, which would enable French savers to become owners of their companies, and which therefore would make it possible to move to more reasonable return-on-equity standards than those of Anglo-Saxon capitalism. It is well known that a very high required return on equity reduces companies’ ability to increase wages and drives them to relocate to countries with low labour costs; The preparation of the massive job change, and therefore the necessary re-skilling that will accompany it, caused by the energy transition; if this change is not prepared, there may be a sharp rise in unemployment and a sharp fall in the number of intermediate jobs, further exacerbating the labour market polarisatio n while ending social mobility.