France's national debt stands at 114% of GDP and its budget deficit is 5.8% of GDP. Government spending equals 57.3% of GDP and tax receipts 51.4% of GDP, among the highest globally. Social spending exceeds that of other European countries. Despite high spending, public services are widely perceived as declining: hospitals report medical staff shortages, rural areas face train line closures, and universities contend with insufficient resources and outdated infrastructure. Medical personnel shortages were worsened by caps on medical school admissions that were lifted in 2020. Urbanisation rose from 76% to 82% over 25 years, increasing pressures on service distribution and prompting calls for decentralisation.
Despite years of denunciation from his left and far-right opponents that Macron has engaged in ultraneoliberalism, there hasn't been any. Not on a macro level, anyway, where both French government spending (57.3% of GDP) and tax receipts (51.4% of GDP) are among the highest in the world, including social spending, which outpaces any of its European neighbours. At the same time, it's impossible to have spent the past decade in France without encountering the widely shared perception and accusation that public services are in decline.
Maintaining the same level of transportation and other services to shrinking rural towns and villages would mean far higher spending per person than for those who live in cities, ultimately diverting resources from something (whatever, and wherever, that is) and raising a fundamental question of fairness. The French, for their part, see the downside to the concentration of policymaking in Paris and overwhelmingly want more decentralisation.
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