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Publié le
Mercredi 09 Février 2022
The Parliament has mandated this committee to evaluate the French recovery plan “France Relance”, amounting to 100 billion euros to be committed by the end of 2022. At this stage, the evaluation can only be partial and provisional.
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The implementation phase of the plan has not yet been completed. More time will be needed to assess the real impact of the measures, particularly those involving investments or technical works. The evaluation will also have to take into account the impact of other public policies such as the emergency support measures for the Covid-19 pandemic and the France 2030 plan announced on the 12th of October 2021.

Yet, an initial analysis has been carried out based on a large amount of quantitative and qualitative information gathered from central government departments and the various actors responsible for steering and implementing France Relance, as well as from some of its beneficiaries. First, the analysis compares the French recovery plan with those of its main European partners. It then provides an initial opinion on the implementation of the plan based on a partial evaluation of five measures: housing insulation, energy retrofit of public buildings, two industrial investment support schemes and the “1 youth, 1 solution” plan.

France Relance: a dual ambition and an imperative of speed

France Relance is structured around three components: Ecology (30 billion euros), Competitiveness (34 billion euros) and Cohesion (36 billion euros). Each component is made up of different measures to which specific objectives are assigned.

The aim assigned to France Relance in September 2020 was twofold. “The plan was designed with two short-term objectives: to enable France to return to its pre-crisis economic activity levels by the summer of 2022 by reviving all sectors of the economy, and to reduce unemployment as soon as 2021, compared to the summer of 2020”[1], thanks to a rapid increase in public spending and investment. This was expected to lead to the creation of 160,000 jobs by 2021[2]. The medium- and long-term objectives were to support competitiveness and help adapt France to future challenges, in particular by lowering production taxes, taking measures in favour of innovation, ecological transition, digital transformation and skill enhancement[3].

France Relance is close in magnitude to the recovery plans of France's main European partners, i.e. Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom, with the exception of the Italian plan, which has a much larger budget but whose disbursements are spread out over a longer period. Their general orientations converge on energy retrofit of buildings, inclusion and social cohesion, taxation, innovation and the development of green mobility. However, the weightings can vary significantly from one country to another, whose economic situations were different before the crisis. France Relance thus distinguished itself by a reduction of 20 billion euros over 2021-2022 in production taxes, the level of which was initially higher than our partners, and, like Germany, by a sharp commitment before the end of 2022.

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[1] Strategic presentation of the "Recovery Plan" mission (annual performance project for the Recovery Plan mission, appended to the 2022 Finance Bill).

[2] According to the annual performance project of the “Recovery Plan” mission,  appended to the 2021 Finance Bill.

[3] According to the France Relance presentation press kit of September 3rd 2020 and the strategic presentation of the “Recovery Plan” mission (annual performance project of the Recovery Plan mission, appended to the 2022 finance bill).