# Mélenchon at HEC: Public Debt, Subsidies and Wealth Distribution

- Original post: https://www.twitter.com/i/status/2107779186047750603
- Source account: [@AvecJLM](https://x.com/AvecJLM)
- Source language: French
- Target language: English
- Duration: 5:51
- Published: 2026-10-12
- Machine translated. Check the original before quoting.
- Canonical URL: https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution
- Original-language version: https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/fr/m%C3%A9lenchon-%C3%A0-hec-dette-publique-subventions-et-r%C3%A9partition-des-richesses.md

## Transcript

[0:00](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution) Here at HEC, we're taught that a company that loses money consistently must convince its backers or rethink its model.

[0:08](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=8) So, I'm just saying that's where your argument doesn't convince me.

[0:12](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=12) Let's spare ourselves some rather caricatural phrases, but if necessary, I'm prepared to return fire.

[0:18](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=18) Because apparently you're taught what? That a company must break even, with or without government subsidies.

[0:26](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=26) Just so I know. You're telling me you agree that I should take power and you'll have nothing left.

[0:31](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=31) Those without the research tax credit because I'd rather put the money into public research than give it to banks and major retail companies that today monopolize the Research Tax Credit.

[0:46](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=46) I use this example so as not to use others, but I could also, for example, you know, other people's money? Yes, it is always other people's money.

[0:54](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=54) Money not taken where it— where it can be found is taken elsewhere.

[0:58](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=58) When Total says it will raise, every year for the next five years, by five percent its dividends, on the other hand, it doesn't raise by five percent the wages of its employees. The money we give some, is what we won't give to others. So let us at least do each other the favor of thinking that we

[1:12](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=72) are indeed talking about wealth produced and its distribution, and that then we discuss distribution and how it is distributed.

[1:19](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=79) You tell me: the policy I propose will not reduce the deficit. So let me ask you: how do you plan to repay the debt?

[1:28](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=88) I'm not asking you, ma'am, I'm asking my— uh, those who— whom I'm competing with. How?

[1:35](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=95) How do you plan to do it? How do you plan to repay three thousand five hundred billion? I, I— I'm all ears.

[1:42](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=102) What's the answer to that? No one will ever repay such a debt. Never.

[1:48](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=108) Do you hear me? Mr. Bruno Le Maire, whom I once told, we need to turn debt securities into perpetual debt securities.

[1:54](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=114) I was talking about the debts France owes to the ECB, in other words, to itself.

[1:58](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=118) He replied, "But, Mr. Mélenchon, the debt is perpetual.

[2:01](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=121) We never repay it, we borrow to repay it."

[2:04](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=124) In other words, if you look at the debt mechanism, it relies on the deficit. There has to be a deficit.

[2:11](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=131) Who has created the deficit since 1974 ? France Unbowed members, communists, socialists.

[2:18](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=138) The share of left-wing coalition governments in the public debt is zilch.

[2:24](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=144) On the other hand, the share of right-wing governments in the explosion of public debt is enormous. The latest one being 1,200 billion.

[2:31](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=151) So, if you like, there are lessons in sound management that are hard to take for a man of the left. I'm telling you.

[2:37](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=157) When you see that the Giscard loan repaid almost 50 times what it had borrowed beforehand, I don't take lessons from liberals on how to build a balanced budget.

[2:47](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=167) Imbalances were created deliberately because by destabilizing the state, we force cuts in public budgets. And when we make cuts in public budgets, we help commodification spread because we say, "The mar— it's simpler, it's more efficient, the state is too cumbersome." That's where we are.

[3:05](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=185) They're the source of the crisis. And by extension.

[3:09](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=189) So, I'm willing to— what are the methods? One: repay.

[3:12](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=192) I just told you. Two: war. War's not bad.

[3:16](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=196) We've often gone to war, and that wipes out debts.

[3:17](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=197) And afterwards, we rebuild and the economy picks up.

[3:20](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=200) Then there's inflation. Inflation that eats away at debt from within. And if not, what? Nothing.

[3:26](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=206) A change in the method of production that allows for a sudden, massive expansion enabling yields we hadn't seen before. That's not the case in agriculture, it's the opposite.

[3:38](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=218) Yields are declining. That's not the, the case in manufacturing either, productivity is stalled.

[3:44](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=224) So where is it? It doesn't exist. You don't have it.

[3:48](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=228) So, we need to stop repeating the catechism and hoping it will eventually work. Because that's magic.

[3:54](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=234) It's the liberal counterpart of what the Soviets used to do.

[3:57](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=237) The less it worked, the more they had to do. Well, it's the same here.

[4:00](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=240) The less it works, the more countries go into debt, the more poverty there is on all sides, the more we should further free up private initiative.

[4:06](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=246) Blah blah blah blah blah blah. French companies, the big ones, don't invest. Investment is declining.

[4:13](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=253) And if the state weren't there to do it, no one would be.

[4:16](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=256) So enough denouncing the state. Enough denouncing the only thing in this country that keeps things running.

[4:21](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=261) If there were no state, there wouldn't be the very large companies in our country that depend to a large extent on what comes through that channel.

[4:28](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=268) And if we've fallen to nine percent of industry in GDP, who brought things down that far?

[4:34](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=274) If it wasn't one of Medef's great champions, Mr. Sturug, who said that companies had to have no walls and no machines.

[4:41](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=281) That was Nike's, uh, model. Nike said, “I, don't make shoes.”

[4:46](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=286) I have a degree, I have dollars and a checkbook.

[4:50](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=290) Well, go ahead, keep going, put a stack of dollars on one side, a stack of sheet metal on the other, and pray for cars to appear in the middle.

[4:56](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=296) Because as long as you need people to do the work, you'll need them to be healthy, so you'll need them to get treatment, so you'll need Social Security.

[5:04](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=304) It's nonsense to claim otherwise, like those who claim to bring gross pay closer to net pay. It's a scam.

[5:11](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=311) Take all the gross pay and put it in the sal- in net pay.

[5:14](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=314) What will you be? Americans forced to put money into savings to pay for your pensions. And you'll be stripped bare every time there is a crisis.

[5:21](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=321) You’ll be forced to pay for your healthcare system, and you’ll end up at the end when you have a major crisis in your family life, as I’ve seen among lots of friends in Latin America.

[5:31](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=331) Dad or Mom has cancer. They’re hospitalized when they can’t take it anymore.

[5:34](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=334) They stay there for a week, and there’s nothing left, you have to sell the house to pay for the following week. Then you’re asked what to do.

[5:40](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=340) You’re the one faced with the decision. Do we stop or keep going?

[5:44](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=344) That’s real life. The rest is just hot air.

[5:47](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/3B29xfKRJBUR/en/m%C3%A9lenchon-at-hec-public-debt-subsidies-and-wealth-distribution?t=347) It’s an ideal world where people recite stock phrases that don’t exist.