FOREWORD

Emmanuel Macron

Hasty and definitive judgments about finance are frequently heard. For some, finance is the enemy of the people, dispossessing them of their sovereignty. For others, finance is a tangible expression of human greed; it is merely an instrument of domination, making it possible to create value without effort and to accumulate wealth without producing. For still others, finance has become a religion before which our societies should prostrate themselves. These caricatures miss the mark. They do not recognize that finance encompasses diverse realities. They do not make it possible to understand that finance is only a means to serve human ends. We must use finance—not serve it.

At its core, finance does not constrain us: it obliges us. It is this reality that Bertrand Badré, with whom I have considered these questions regularly for years, highlights in this beautiful work. Throughout his professional career, Badré has been a privileged witness to world-changing events, such as the acceleration of trade, the progressive integration of our economies, the emergence of new challenges, notably environmental ones, and the advent of new risks, especially threats to security.

The reflections he shares here are a call for determined action. Indeed, recent history shows that we have made the collective choice of inaction. The decades of prosperity after the Second World War, based on the Bretton Woods Agreement, the Marshall Plan, and the beginnings of the European construction, forged a stable and organized financial system. This cycle broke with the suspension of the gold convertibility of the dollar, and then the first energy crisis. After this shock and the ensuing stagflation, the conservative and neoliberal revolution of the 1980s ushered in a new period of our economic history. Growth and considerable progress were achieved. But by unleashing the movement of capital, by drastically reducing regulation, and by expanding public and private debt, governments finally relinquished their power to make finance serve their greater goals, or to use finance as a tool for action. In 2007 the financial crisis suddenly lifted the veil on this pernicious system. The political and social disorders that it engendered and the fractures that it accentuated were the violent outcome. However, it would be a grave error to conclude that this crisis discredited finance itself. I believe this is a misconception. The crucial lesson of this crisis is the urgent need to regain control of the global financial system. In particular, we must address three global challenges.

The first challenge is the environment. I am convinced that the necessary ecological transition will first be an economic transition. At a time when the president of the United States seems to have abandoned this battle, France and the European Union must understand that their responsibility is all the greater. To succeed we have to accelerate the mobilization of private and public actors, politicians, and civil society. Success will also require massive use of global savings in order to transform our productive model and create the conditions for environmental innovation. Finally, it is important to reorganize our financial system so that it can better integrate the ecological imperative. Finance is the arena in which progress can be made, such as accounting for the long term, valuing externalities (in particular, the price of carbon), and holding economic actors accountable. In this matter, France recognizes its role and is on the front line. The financial center of Paris is in the process of adopting a strategy and rules of the game to turn it into an international leader in green finance. I will encourage this movement in favor of a useful finance.

The second challenge is innovation. We are no longer in an economy of catch-up priorities and big projects, as was the case some 30 years ago. Our course is no longer toward the imitation of products imagined abroad; it is found in innovation in the developed countries and in all the countries of the world. The strength and power of the emerging model resides in the alliance that companies are able to seal with millions of users. The result is a formidably decentralized, more horizontal economy, in which it is a question of constant investment to create employment and encourage our businesses to grow. The digital revolution is revealing itself to be at the heart of financial cycles. The released energy thus appears to be without limits; the effects are colossal and can cause alarm. They must, however, benefit all. In this battle, we must put finance to the task. Investment needs to exceed the capacity of governments. Cooperation between the public and private sectors requires new approaches and new tools. It is not enough merely to better regulate! We must also innovate in the financial field, in order to allow all the territories and all the actors to benefit from the waves of progress. And such crucial innovation is now unfolding in a renewed framework. Bertrand Badré recalls an exchange with Sir Ronald Cohen: “The 19th century was the age of rewards; the 20th century was that of risk/reward; the 21st century looks like the age of risk/reward/impact.” Investment is at the heart of the economic policy I lead in France. It is more broadly a major challenge for Europe as a whole, which must invest more and better to accelerate the digital revolution and boldly enter the new economy.

The third challenge is development. The needs are immense, but they have never been more urgent. Climate change, the rise of migration, and the unprecedented risks associated with pandemics require us to act quickly and to mobilize the necessary resources. Again, public institutions alone will not be able to cope with this global challenge. The money exists, but it is poorly allocated. It is important to reinvent forms of international cooperation, to renew our multilateral tools by adapting them to the new demands, and to encourage private institutions to take risks for the general interest—to invest most heavily where needs are greatest.

Environment, innovation, and development—these three global challenges are at the heart of a new paradigm that we must imagine and build after 10 years of crisis. Together, they demonstrate that we cannot do so without finance, albeit useful and responsible finance. To refuse to put the financial system at our service would be to give up action and prepare the conditions for our collective failure. Of course, this book provides neither all the answers nor all the solutions. But it allows us to confront the fatalists, the adherents of decline, and all those who imagine or imply that we are disarmed. Yes, finance can help save the world. It is up to us to claim it for ourselves.