Pascal Le Merrer urges France to rethink growth and education policies - Economy and business

The director general of Lyon’s Journées de l’économie argues that France cannot rely on weak, consumption-led growth and calls on presidential candidates to draw on economists’ proposals to address declining purchasing power and education outcomes.

France is facing a combination of economic, social and political pressures that is encouraging a retreat from international engagement, according to Pascal Le Merrer, director general of the Journées de l’économie. In a column published ahead of the event in Lyon, he highlights climate disruption, demographic change, wars, the crisis of multilateralism, rising poverty and inequality, and the relative decline of France within a fragmented European Union.

Le Merrer identifies purchasing power and education as two central concerns in the French debate. He argues that the country has become relatively poorer, with GDP per capita below the European Union average and at a level comparable to Cyprus among the bloc’s 27 members.

Between 2015 and 2025, France recorded average annual growth of 1.2%, compared with 2% in Spain and 3.6% in Poland. The figure reached 2.4% in the United States, according to the figures cited in the column. Growth is forecast at 0.4% for 2026, alongside inflation of 2.3%.

In this context, Le Merrer says that any renewed rise in inflation, particularly for sensitive goods such as oil, can reduce purchasing power when economic growth is weak. He therefore argues that France cannot continue to depend on very limited growth driven by consumption that is losing momentum.

The education system is the second major area of concern. France spends less per primary-school pupil than the average across Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, while average student performance has also deteriorated in secondary education.

The column points to international PISA assessments, which show that the share of students below the minimum mathematics proficiency threshold increased from 17% in 2003 to 36% in 2025. It also states that 14% of people aged 15 to 29 in France are NEETs—neither in education, employment nor training—compared with 5.8% in the Netherlands.

The Journées de l’économie take place in Lyon from 3 to 5 November, with Le Monde as a partner. Le Merrer calls on candidates in the presidential election to engage with collective economic research and the proposals it offers for reversing the country’s decline.

Sources: Le Monde Économie.