MANIFESTO FOR THE MAINTENANCE OF FRANCE
For a society that invests in its foundations, not just its fortunes.
France is a magnificent train
A collective masterpiece. A country built by generations of work, knowledge, care and solidarity.
But a train cannot run forever on past achievements. Its tracks must be maintained, brakes checked, carriages repaired and engines renewed. The people who keep it moving need care too.
A nation requires the same attention. Its schools, hospitals, infrastructure, institutions and natural environments form a shared inheritance. We received it from others. We have a responsibility to pass it on.
Maintaining the country is a collective responsibility. Taxation must give us the means to fulfil it.
Repair things before they break
We refuse to accept the exhaustion of teachers, healthcare staff and social workers as a normal condition of the country's functioning.
We refuse to wait until a building becomes dangerous before renovating it, until a service is overwhelmed before strengthening its teams, or until someone reaches breaking point before offering help.
Education, healthcare and social protection need continuity: trained professionals, time, suitable buildings and predictable budgets. An announcement cannot replace a team. A reform cannot mend a roof. An indicator cannot treat a patient.
Maintenance is often invisible. We notice the stationary train; we forget the work that kept it running until then.
Preventing failures must become a political priority.
Listen to tomorrow's passengers
When young people mobilise over their education, housing or future, their demands deserve a democratic response.
Student demonstrations, riots and destruction must not be conflated. Violence must be addressed for what it is, without discrediting an entire generation or erasing its demands.
On the evening of 1 October 2026, the Ministry of Justice announced 1,793 placements in police custody since Monday 28 September in connection with the school blockade movement.[7] This figure must not be confused with the number of arrests. Police custody is not a conviction.
These figures should prompt examination of the facts, subsequent judicial proceedings and the treatment of the young people involved. They cannot, by themselves, measure the success of public policy.
Ensuring safety also places responsibilities on public authorities: protecting people, respecting the right to demonstrate, using proportionate force and accounting for its use.
A society must be able to uphold its rules while listening to those who challenge its choices.
Governing also means maintaining our connections
On 28 September 2026, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu condemned an “irresponsible escalation” by La France insoumise representatives calling for school blockades to spread. On 1 October, his office attributed the violence to an organised operation involving LFI and far-left groups, according to AFP.[6]
These are allegations made by the executive. They require evidence and cannot, on their own, establish responsibility.
Assaults, arson and actions that put people in danger must be condemned. Protecting pupils, staff and police is essential. But that obligation does not remove the need to answer demands about absent teachers who are not replaced, deteriorating buildings and learning conditions.
Supporting a protest does not prove that someone organises its violence. Responsibility must be established through actions and evidence, without treating all protesters or the entire left as a single guilty bloc.
We ask the government to address criticism on its merits, account for its decisions and seek solutions with representatives of young people and staff. We also ask opposition leaders to support democratic expression without encouraging actions that endanger others.
Maintaining France also means maintaining what connects us. No train runs better because its passengers tear one another apart.
Accountability must reach the top
On RTL on 2 October 2026, Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin said he had asked prosecutors to seek parental civil liability when children under 18 cause damage, so that their parents bear the cost of repairs.[8]
Repairing damage is a legitimate demand. But the debate about responsibility cannot stop with families.
If citizens must answer for the damage they cause, those who govern must also answer for the consequences of their decisions and failures.
When a warning about an unsafe building goes unanswered, when a service deteriorates despite repeated warnings, or when a budget decision causes foreseeable harm, who accounts for it? Who explains what could have been prevented? Who accepts the consequences?
Political and administrative accountability differ from parental civil liability. Not every policy error justifies seizing a minister's personal assets. Personal wealth does not establish wrongdoing. But these distinctions must not become a refuge from scrutiny.
We call for independent evaluations, public hearings, disclosure of warnings and the responses they received, and meaningful consequences when wrongdoing is established, in accordance with the law. Repair must also include restoring the service and preventing further failures.
The more power you hold, the more you must account for it. Accountability must follow power all the way to the top.
That standard applies equally to taxation: deciding who contributes and who benefits shapes everyone's future.
Shared wealth, increasingly unequally distributed
According to INSEE, inequality in gross household wealth rose slightly between 2015 and 2024, mainly because of growing inequality in property wealth. In early 2024, the wealthiest 10% of households held 48% of total gross wealth. The least wealthy half held only 7%.[1]
This concentration predates Emmanuel Macron's presidency. But recent tax choices disproportionately benefited the most affluent households.
The Institut des politiques publiques estimates that tax and benefit measures decided during the 2017–2022 presidential term produced an average gain equivalent to 3.3% of living standards for the most affluent 1%, compared with 0.8% for the least affluent 5%. These figures measure the effects of the policies studied, rather than the overall change in living standards.[2]
Every tax decision should also be judged by how its benefits are distributed.
Trickle-down must prove its case
Tax cuts on capital were justified by the promise of encouraging investment, economic activity and employment.
Evaluations identified a strong response in dividend distributions and some positive effects on business creation. However, they do not establish that benefits received at the top spread widely throughout society.[3]
Research on reinvestment does not establish that most additional income financed new businesses either. For the large dividends and capital gains studied outside the specific share-contribution-and-sale tax-deferral arrangement, researchers detected no reinvestment through significant stakes in previously unowned companies; they observed a slight increase in investment in other companies already owned by the household.[3]
The question remains: if the gains for affluent households are established, why treat the benefits for everyone as a given?
France Stratégie estimates that replacing the ISF wealth tax with the IFI property wealth tax meant €4.5 billion in forgone revenue in 2022, compared with the hypothetical continuation of ISF. This is an estimate for that year, not a cumulative figure since 2018.[3]
A policy involving such sums must face the same scrutiny as spending on schools or hospitals.
Privatisation involves more than a sale price
Britain's political turning point in 1979 opened a major period of privatisation. In France, a first major wave began in 1986, followed by further sales in subsequent decades.
A public enterprise is not the personal property of those in government. It forms part of a public inheritance for which they must answer to citizens.
When an individual buys shares in a privatised company, they acquire an individual right over an asset in which they previously had a collective stake through the state.
We have sometimes been invited to become individual owners of what we already held collectively.
Services could already involve charges before privatisation. What changes is ownership, the destination of profits and decision-making power.
A sale brings immediate revenue. It can also mean surrendering future dividends and strategic influence. Its assessment must consider the price obtained, necessary investment, transferred risks, tax revenues and consequences for users.
France retains public shareholdings. Other countries use different models: Norway's sovereign wealth fund was financed by oil and gas revenues; Finland owns Solidium, a public investment holding company.[4][5]
Before selling a collective asset, demand a long-term assessment and public debate. Sale proceeds alone do not prove that a sale serves the public interest.
Contribute according to real means
Illness, disability, unemployment and life's setbacks can reduce someone's ability to contribute. A society built on solidarity recognises these realities and protects everyone's dignity.
Solidarity also requires those with the greatest economic means to contribute effectively. Taxation must be able to reach real wealth, through transparent rules and effective action against fraud and abusive avoidance.
Rights cannot be reduced to what someone can pay. Responsibilities should reflect what someone can contribute.
If you have more, you help more. If you have less, you receive more help.
Six commitments to maintain France
- Plan maintenance over several years. Establish public renovation plans for schools, hospitals and infrastructure, with predictable funding and progress reports accessible to everyone.
- Care for the teams. Involve professionals and users in decisions, anticipate staffing needs and ensure accessibility and recognition of disability.
- Evaluate tax advantages. Publish their costs, beneficiaries and results; revise those whose public benefit is not sufficiently demonstrated.
- Protect public assets. Subject major sales to independent long-term evaluation and retain shareholdings justified by strategic or public-service interests.
- Finance lasting solidarity. Strengthen effective progressivity in contributions and invest in prevention, education, healthcare and ecosystem protection.
- Make decision-makers accountable. Examine ignored warnings and documented failures, publish findings and ensure appropriate consequences for established wrongdoing. Involve young people and staff in finding solutions.
Put the country in a condition worth passing on
A society's success is also measured by the quality of its schools, access to healthcare, the dignity of vulnerable people, trust in its institutions and the condition of the living world it leaves to future generations.
Maintenance costs money. Allowing things to deteriorate creates human, social and financial costs that annual accounts struggle to reveal.
We ask for a shared standard of responsibility: contributions proportionate to means, accountability proportionate to power, and constant care for what we hold together.
A bill sent to a family cannot repair an education policy. An accusation against an opponent cannot replace dialogue. Growing private fortunes do not guarantee a country that is doing better.
France is a magnificent train. Let us care for its tracks, its teams and its passengers. Let us give ourselves the means to continue the journey together.
Richard Jenkins
Sources
The numbered sources below correspond to those in the French original.
[1] INSEE, « Les montants de patrimoine détenus par les ménages en 2024 », Insee Focus n° 371, décembre 2025 : https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/8672665
[2] Institut des politiques publiques, note n° 81, « Effets redistributifs des mesures socio-fiscales du quinquennat 2017–2022 à destination des ménages » : https://www.ipp.eu/note-ipp-n81-effets-redistributifs-des-mesures-socio-fiscales-du-quinquennat-2017-2022-a-destination-des-menages/
[3] France Stratégie, Comité d’évaluation des réformes de la fiscalité du capital, rapport final, octobre 2023 : https://www.strategie-plan.gouv.fr/publications/comite-devaluation-reformes-de-fiscalite-capital-rapport-final
[4] Norges Bank Investment Management, histoire du fonds souverain norvégien : https://www.nbim.no/en/about-us/about-the-fund/the-history/
[5] Solidium, présentation de la société publique finlandaise : https://www.solidium.fi/en/company/
[6] AFP / TV5MONDE, « Blocage des lycées : Matignon condamne des violences urbaines et incrimine LFI », 1er octobre 2026 : https://information.tv5monde.com/france/blocage-des-lycees-matignon-condamne-des-violences-urbaines-et-incrimine-lfi-2839778
[7] La Dépêche du Midi, bilan de la Chancellerie rapporté le 1er octobre 2026 au soir : https://www.ladepeche.fr/2026/10/01/direct-blocage-des-lycees-le-mouvement-de-colere-setend-ce-jeudi-feux-de-poubelles-tirs-de-mortiers-et-crs-en-renfort-a-toulouse-13578070.php
[8] RTL, entretien avec Gérald Darmanin du 2 octobre 2026, déclaration sur la responsabilité civile des parents : https://www.rtl.fr/actu/politique/faire-payer-les-reparations-sur-rtl-gerald-darmanin-explique-avoir-demande-aux-procureurs-de-requerir-la-responsabilite-civile-des-parents-des-casseurs-7900679665