This book is a journey through the author’s personal history and the public accounts of the French state. First of all, we follow the young centralist as he joins the ENA and discovers, throughout his many training courses, the (dys)functioning, the mysteries, the conflicts of different public services and administrations in the field.
Then, through these 32 years spent in the service of the republic, initially, in the forecasting department of the Ministry of Finance, we learn, among other things, how the Ministry of Finance works, how budget forecasts are made, international exchange relations, the lack of cooperation and coordination between the different departments of the ministry. But also, since we have the chance to (re)live the 80s/90s with François Ecalle, we follow him during the liberalization of prices, the preparation of the euro and the European budgetary rules as well as the difficult opening of services to competition.
Then, at the Court of Auditors, we control the banking sector and discover, at the Banque de France, an accounting system that is, to say the least, heterogeneous, but also very specific accounts and secret loans from the state, accounting and tax processing of certain equity investments in BNP and Banexi, whose legal exemplarity is not obvious. After the banking sector, the journey continues in the public companies of the world of transport, in agriculture, and we hallucinate with the author in front of the irregularities, the favors obtained, the bad choices, the waste, the absurd reforms, and the calamitous management.
Some of the recommendations proposed during the audits have been implemented, but these decisions took a long time to make and were sometimes thwarted or canceled by other reforms. It is striking to note the permanence of fiscal, economic, financial, and political problems and the measures that should be taken to solve them. The observations, the diagnoses made on social VAT, on pensions, on employment policy, on sectoral policies such as industry, housing, agriculture, etc. and the recommendations proposed thirty years ago are still relevant.
But all is well, the Court of Auditors continues to publish reports that remain a dead letter, the Treasury management continues to write to its minister that the public deficits recorded in the finance law are unattainable without the adjustment of accounts, the state continues to let its deficit and debt slip away and the French continue to ask the state for everything. Be careful, however, not to lose our sovereignty through the action of certain foreign actors…
François Ecalle is Honorary Master Advisor at the Court of Auditors and President of Fipeco, the Public Finance and Economy Association
Ph Alezard
