D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
OECD includes transfers - e.g., spending on welfare security and taxation on income, even though they're neither consumption nor capital expenditure (the government hasn't acquired an asset nor purchased a product, it's just moved money from one person to another). The World Bank does not. As an exaggerated example, if you had a government which taxed 100% of all incomes, but then gave out benefits exactly in proportion to what everyone's original income was, this would show up as 100% for the OECD statistics and 0% for the World Bank.
The difference between the OECD and World Bank figures is roughly speaking the size of the welfare state in that country. The actual French state spending itself, in terms of spending on bureaucrats, roads and other infrastructure, teachers' salaries, the military, etc. is pretty normal for a developed economy. Transfers are indeed very high relative to other OECD nations, but the largest part of that is because France's taxation system is grossly Byzantine - 100.1bn Euros were spent on tax abatements and repayments. Instead of taxing people the sensible amount, the taxation laws hit all the wrong people, and then the state has to give money back. You can solve that without affecting the welfare state, you just need to seriously address the tax codes.
Macron is actually proposing making this problem worse, by offering yet more tax credits and abatements to companies that can navigate the legal system, instead of trying to reduce tax credits and abatements as part of a more general simplification of the system.
