"Zero-based budgeting." The phrase came up at the French Finance Ministry on Wednesday, March 12, during a speech on the preparation of the budget for 2026. To prepare a budget that promises to be thorny once again, the government is considering the use of BBZ, as it is also known, said the budget minister, Amélie de Montchalin. Conceived for the American company Texas Instruments in the 1960s and deployed at the federal level by Jimmy Carter in 1977, this technique employed since then by companies such as Heinz and Unilever basically consists of starting from a blank sheet of paper, and rethinking each expenditure, instead of more or less renewing the same budget from one year to the next.

The minister immediately qualified her remarks. Zero-based budgeting "is a theoretically difficult and politically very perilous exercise," so "we're not going to say that we're starting from zero" altogether, she said. Having taken this precaution, she nevertheless made her point: "The idea is precisely to ask ourselves: In 2025, in 2026, what are our priorities?" In short, to "re-examine" each public expenditure item, instead of taking them for granted, by increasing them at the inflation rate.

You have 85.12% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.