France has something like 400+ different taxes, more than 6x the number of taxes that exists in, say, Germany. France also has, officially, nearly 60% of its GDP that is public spending. And out of what's left, many companies are fake private companies, ran by apparatchiks very close to french politicians.
So France is basically a planned economy. And an insane number: 70% of the young people in France dream of... Working in the public sector. For it's the only way they can envision having a stable job.
France is a country where you plant public servants and taxes do grow.
And now we see the results and they're not nice.
France's public spendings have always been out of control and it's a country that is deeply sick, falling under the weight of all the insane regulations and taxes it created.
The time of the Concorde and Minitel is very far behind.
And for a country that sees red, thinks red and loves red, the delicious irony that the biggest french companies are those exporting luxury goods like Hermes handbags isn't lost on me.
I don't see any future ahead for France besides becoming a country of the 3rd world: and in many french cities there are already entire neighborhood looking just like that.
Education levels are down the drain, culture is down the drain.
Most of the claims made don't really mean anything without additional context, but the 60% figure seems approximately true: <a href="https://tradingeconomics.com/france/government-spending-to-gdp" rel="nofollow">https://tradingeconomics.com/france/government-spending-to-g...
Interesting graphs! Looks like over the last decade it's been mostly flat save for 2020/COVID.
Still: GP mentioning that as a "problem" and a sign of a "planned economy" is kind of an odd fixation. As if that money went into a blackhole or something.
Tricky to work out citational claims in the rhetoric, but
> France also has, officially, nearly 60% of its GDP that is public spending
That's fair
> [working in public sector is] the only way they can envision having a stable job.
That is the same globally. Except in countries where the public sector doesn't mean a stable job. Young people today are all about the hussle, gig work etc. People who just want to work to live have problems across the western world.
> France's public spendings have always been out of control
It seems to be quite stable over the last 10 years, other countries aren't.
Are you saying he's wrong? Or just that you don't like talking about the issue?
Because there's endless videos showing you the IRL issues if you aren't directly affected, except people chose to bury their heads in the sand, which is why the issues stay unsolved and keep getting worse, because nobody want to acknowledge and talk about them.
Yeah, searching for videos and news of extreme events will give you a comprehensive picture of a life in a country.
I once offered a guy to literally film how I would cycle across Paris filming - so he can count garbage piles/rioting gangs/radical muslims or (oh horror!) black people - whatever he is panicking about of at that moment. He dismissed me simply accusing me of “lying”...what?
It honestly feels like French economic/social model is under pretty coordinated propaganda attack recently. I live and run a business in France - and, while it is not without drawbacks, the overall balance is quite comfortable.
When I tell that to people online or someone outside France - they paint for this picture of a hellscape of bureaucracy, crippling taxes, marauding gangs of immigrants and overblown public sector. Which I, weirdly, cannot dispel even by saying “dude, I live there”.
TacticalCoder · · focus · HN ↗
So France is basically a planned economy. And an insane number: 70% of the young people in France dream of... Working in the public sector. For it's the only way they can envision having a stable job.
France is a country where you plant public servants and taxes do grow.
And now we see the results and they're not nice.
France's public spendings have always been out of control and it's a country that is deeply sick, falling under the weight of all the insane regulations and taxes it created.
The time of the Concorde and Minitel is very far behind.
And for a country that sees red, thinks red and loves red, the delicious irony that the biggest french companies are those exporting luxury goods like Hermes handbags isn't lost on me.
I don't see any future ahead for France besides becoming a country of the 3rd world: and in many french cities there are already entire neighborhood looking just like that.
Education levels are down the drain, culture is down the drain.
It seems to be an endless fall.
carlm42 · · focus · HN ↗
gruez · · focus · HN ↗
carlm42 · · focus · HN ↗
iso1631 · · focus · HN ↗
> France also has, officially, nearly 60% of its GDP that is public spending
That's fair
> [working in public sector is] the only way they can envision having a stable job.
That is the same globally. Except in countries where the public sector doesn't mean a stable job. Young people today are all about the hussle, gig work etc. People who just want to work to live have problems across the western world.
> France's public spendings have always been out of control
It seems to be quite stable over the last 10 years, other countries aren't.
> Education levels are down the drain
There's no data to support that
Heres some data:
<a href="https://www.imf.org/en/-/media/files/publications/fiscal-monitor/2025/october/english/text.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.imf.org/en/-/media/files/publications/fiscal-mon...
France spends 57.5% of GDP, way higher than Germany, UK etc
But its been stable for a decade (2016 = 57.4%)
Germany has grown from 44.7% to 51.4% in the same time
As for educational achievement, France scores about the same as Germany on PISA, it does better in maths than the USA but worse in reading.
Adult literacy overall is slightly below USA, looking at level 1 or below it's the same, but high proficency is slightly below OECD averages
trial3 · · focus · HN ↗
ah man. you were doing so good. legitimate-sounding finance arguments, etc. why’d you have to slip that one in
PorciiVorbesc · · focus · HN ↗
Because there's endless videos showing you the IRL issues if you aren't directly affected, except people chose to bury their heads in the sand, which is why the issues stay unsolved and keep getting worse, because nobody want to acknowledge and talk about them.
trial3 · · focus · HN ↗
it’s very funny to be actually doing the “oh you know the ones” tweet in 2026
PorciiVorbesc · · focus · HN ↗
quantum_mcts · · focus · HN ↗
quantum_mcts · · focus · HN ↗