2027 presidential race: Philippe Aghion tears into Marine Le Pen and Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s economic proposals

Philippe Aghion says France’s economic outlook is already “morose,” and that politicians who derail talks over the 2027 budget could be seen as the authors of a catastrophe. In an interview with La Tribune Dimanche, the Nobel Prize-winning economist described sluggish growth, rising unemployment, more expensive debt financing and investment held back by geopolitical and domestic uncertainty.

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pretending to be reasonable

Aghion said the priority was to adopt “a credible budget” for 2027. While he considered most candidates to be taking a reasonable approach, he accused Marine Le Pen of “pretending to be reasonable.” He called it contradictory to support putting a balanced-budget rule into the Constitution while also promising to keep the retirement age at 62, or even lower it to 60.

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a credible budget

He also rejected Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s proposal to cancel 20% of France’s debt held by the European Central Bank. Aghion said such a move was technically possible, but argued that it would frighten buyers of French debt and lead directly to bankruptcy and the breakup of the euro zone. He compared what he called the spread of misinformation on the issue to false claims made during the pandemic, likening debt cancellation to hydroxychloroquine being promoted as a miracle Covid treatment.

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which would lead us straight to bankruptcy and the breakup of the euro zone

Aghion said France was not facing a debt crisis, but warned of a possible snowball effect if debt grew faster than national wealth. That could prompt institutional investors to leave and paralyze the economy, he said. He described reducing the indexation of the highest pensions as a fast and powerful way to curb spending, while arguing that France would eventually need to raise the effective retirement age, with flexibility rather than a mandatory fixed age.

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Our economy would be paralyzed