The state's biggest expense? €211 billion in business aid. Here's the report that unpacks this scandal.

Devotees of supply-side policies and "whatever it takes" in favor of businesses will surely claim that this report was written by a communist senator, Fabien Gay (who also happens to be the editor of our newspaper). The fact remains that this parliamentary report, published on Tuesday, July 8, was unanimously approved by the commission of inquiry into the use of public aid to large companies and their subcontractors, in a Senate with a right-wing majority.

This report is timely. A week before François Bayrou details his budgetary austerity measures for 2026 , it indirectly provides clues to finding €40 billion in savings in public spending. For the first time, a substantiated and consolidated figure totals all subsidies, exemptions, rebates, and other tax loopholes in favor of businesses: €211 billion were thus paid out in 2023, divided into 2,252 schemes.

"These are only state aids. We were able to compile them from data collected from administrations and with the help of data specialists ," explains Fabien Gay. "To this must be added aid from local authorities, around 2 billion, and from Europe, perhaps 12 billion euros more. But since these are estimates, we have excluded them." One thing is certain: these 211 billion euros represent the largest item of state expenditure.

It must be said that, during the hearings, the absence of official figures was felt. When lobbyist Agnès Verdier-Molinié tentatively put forward an estimate of €28 billion, the Minister of the Economy, Éric Lombard, himself suggested €150 billion, while France Stratégie estimated a high range of €223 billion in 2019. The Senate's calculation thus comes close to the estimates produced by this service attached to Matignon, as well as the work of the Clersé economists.

"It is very important to have this official figure, with a precise definition of public aid to businesses, including state subsidies, aid paid by the BPI and all tax expenditures and reductions in contributions targeted at companies. These parliamentary reports are authoritative, particularly because they are the result of a consensus," said Vincent Gath-Drezet, tax specialist and secretary general of Attac.

Economist Maxime Combes, co-author of the book Un pognon de dingue, mais pour qui?, who was interviewed by the committee, insisted that these 211 billion euros "show that over the last twenty-five years, public aid to businesses has increased 4 to 5 times faster than GDP and social benefits. Therefore, contrary to the dominant discourse, what is too expensive is French capitalism."

Unanimous on this assessment, the commission also agreed on 26 recommendations, the fruit of the sixty hearings carried out over five months with economists from all sides, around thirty major bosses , representatives of trade unions, employers' organizations, administrations, as well as political figures. "The only refusal we received was that of François Hollande, on two occasions, whom we wanted to hear on the CICE," stressed