, the recent unemployment insurance reform provides better incentives to work and to manage companies'human resources in a long term perspective. it will be necessary to assess whether it is both sufficiently effective and sufficiently fair. - of course, there remains the issue of wage increases when it comes to enhancing job attractiveness. these are currently highly expected by our fellow citizens in the face of the inflationary hump ; but we must prevent the return of a general price - wage spiral, which would be a loss for all. nevertheless, for certain jobs where there is a deficit not in skills but in attractiveness, wage increases and negotiated improvements in working conditions are the key. page 12 sur 15 all these levers for influencing labour supply must be combined, instead of being too often opposed to one another in our public debate. they must be used with perseverance, rather than remain fleeting announcements. only then can we find the other two missing thirds to gain the half point of potential growth in five years. only then can we hope to achieve a 5 % unemployment rate in ten years. and only then, and i'm coming to this point, will we finally be able keep our public spending under control. 2 ) public finances and debt the figures on public debt are well known. the shock caused by the health crisis has led to a historically high level of debt, slightly below 115 % of gdp in 2021, as, alas, we were starting from a pre - crisis ratio that was significantly higher than the average for the euro area. if the current trends of the past ten years are continued in the future - low potential growth, increased public spending in volume terms of over 1 % per year, deficits still above 3 % for several years – this debt ratio will at best only be stabilised. at best, because the public debate today is awash with proposals for new spending and additional tax cuts. the reality is that our country cannot afford either. speaking with the voice of an independent institution, i would like to remind you that we cannot further worsen our public finances. page 13 sur 15 this simple stabilisation is not sustainable, for several reasons. first, because it would be irresponsible to bet on the continuation of extremely favourable interest rates. a rise of merely 1 % in interest rates - which is not an extreme scenario - would cost eur 39 billion per year after 10 years, i. e. the equivalent of the current defense budget. second, because france must be

, to ensure a return to our 2 % objective. c ) in the next two years, however, concerns should reverse : inflation is expected to normalise in line with a " new regime " which would not be the too low pre - covid inflation, but one close to our 2 % target. conversely, current growth, boosted by catch - up effects, is expected to run out of steam : according to our latest projections, growth in france should fall to below 1. 5 % in 2024. we should set a more ambitious target for potential growth, between 1. 5 and 2 %, i. e. a gain of half a percentage point over the spontaneous trend. because we need the revenues from growth to finance our collective projects, especially ecological ones, and our welfare, this is not inconsistent with rethinking the drivers of growth. this ambition would also make it possible to better reconcile an increase in household purchasing power and the containment of public debt, whereas we have so far sacrificed the latter in order to somewhat artificially ensure the former. the banque de france is entitled to discuss this, because monetary policy cannot ignore economic imbalances, nor can it compensate for them in the long term. and i am speaking this evening with all the independence that this institution enjoys : when the central bank provides facts and its page 4 sur 15 expertise, it is free of any political influence and respects the democratic process which, fortunately, is then responsible for the choices. this half percentage point of potential growth can be achieved by a medium - to long - term reform path : the efficient firefighters of the crisis must gradually hand over to the architects. a third of the necessary progress could be achieved through two european - level transformations ( ii ) – via investment, digitalisation and the associated productivity gains –, the rest would depend on two challenges specific to france ( iii ). ii. two schumpeterian transformations for europe europe, like the rest of the world, will have to achieve two major transformations in the next decade : the digital revolution and the climate transition. the covid crisis has obviously accelerated the former, and fortunately has not slowed down the efforts regarding the latter. compared to the rest of the world – and in particular the united states – our europe is lagging behind with the first transition, and still ahead with the second. but it suffers above all from a structural handicap : its lack not of economic weight – which we have, together – but of speed ; europe has