“Billions of public money are being spent on supporting businesses”: Lucie Castets debunks the “empty coffers” doctrine

" Where have our billions gone ?" Through this direct question, Lucie Castets works to deconstruct the mountain of prejudices skillfully erected by successive right-wing governments to paralyze any questioning of the "empty coffers" doctrine and, therefore, close the debate on the decline of public services .

If the coffers are empty, it is the fault of these same leaders who, mandate after mandate, have dried up revenues while directing a large part of public money towards supporting businesses , asserts the senior civil servant and co-founder of the collective Our Public Services, in her essay Where Have Our Billions Gone (Seuil, 180 pages, May 2025). A year after embodying the union of the left under the banner of the New Popular Front , Lucie Castets delivers here a plea to break fatalism and build, in the face of an economic system at the end of its tether, an alternative model of radical rupture, which will put public services back at the heart of our economic and social model.

Public services occupy a central place in your essay, where you elevate them to the status of "a major, almost civilizational issue." Can you explain what leads you to this conclusion?

The question of the place of public services is closely linked to what we decide to share and, consequently, to the response we provide to universal needs, such as that of being cared for or having access to education. The question of the level of socialization of spending conditions the way in which we are able to truly form a society.

It is a question of civilization, which refers to this alternative: do we decide to live in a society where everyone manages as best they can, mainly thanks to what they received at birth; or do we choose to place the principles of solidarity, universality,...