What explains France’s high level of public spending?

The COVID crisis has revived debate on the efficiency of public spending in France (on healthcare and education in particular). To add to this debate, we can look at the reasons for France’s high level of public spending relative to Germany. The gap between France and Germany results from: A number of small gaps ( between spending on healthcare, education, public investment and research, families, housing, labour market, military/police/security/justice); Two large gaps (each of more than 4 percentage points of GDP): The weight of public pension spending; The weight of wages paid in general government, which is related to the low level of labour productivity in France’s public sector.