Part III - Institutions
7 - Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations (CDC)
The Caisse des Dépôts is one of the oldest and most solid institutions of the French State, created in 1816 precisely to manage public funds sheltered from executive power, after the financial disorders of the Revolution and the Empire. Its founding principle is unchanged in the sovereign regime: an institution that serves the real national economy without being the financial arm of the government in office.
Sovereign dual circuit
The Caisse des Dépôts operates according to two complementary circuits. The first is popular savings: the Livret A and regulated savings collected from households, transformed into long-term investments of national interest. This is the historical circuit, virtuous by construction. The savings of the French finance France. The second is direct sovereign monetary financing from the Bank of France for strategic missions that savings alone cannot cover. This second circuit is approved by Bercy, the Minister of Economy is personally and criminally responsible for it. This responsibility is not symbolic: it imposes a rigor in calibration that technocratic anonymity cannot guarantee.
The responsibility of the Minister of Economy therefore bears on decisions of monetary creation. In the event of unjustified, uncalibrated, or diverted creation (favoritism, political support, deliberate inflation), the HCEP refers the matter to the reformed Senate which initiates the procedure according to the high treason mechanism restored in the justice workstream. The minister benefits from no immunity linked to his function for these decisions. This responsibility is the direct counterpart of the sovereign power of issuance: a tool this powerful cannot be exercised without personal accountability engaged.
Three distinct missions
The first mission is financing the real economy through subsidized loans: to departments for their equipment investments, to companies within the framework of state aid conditioned on the cession of shares, to owners who renovate vacant housing to return it to rental, to journalists joining a press cooperative - the loan rate being zero in this specific case. These loans are not subsidies. They are repayable, with advantageous rates as an incentive but without a definitive gift to the taxpayer. Money circulates in the economic circuit, returns to the Caisse and goes back out to finance new projects. This is circuitist logic applied concretely: currency creates value at each pass rather than being lost in definitive exemptions.
The second mission is the management of the sovereign participation fund in French companies. When the State aids a company, it receives in return shares amounting to 50% of the aid, valued at book value, which deliberately favors micro-enterprises and SMEs whose assets are often undervalued. The Caisse des Dépôts manages these participations according to a model inspired by the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund: below 15% of capital, collection of dividends and capital gains without any interference in company management. Above 15%, a seat on the supervisory board gives the State a right of veto over the sole decisions that threaten national sovereignty - sale to a foreign shareholder, massive relocation, disposal of strategic assets. The State is not a company manager, it is a sovereign shareholder that collects a national return and protects the collective interest without meddling in day-to-day decisions.
The third mission is the management of the pension reserve fund, a third way between classical capitalization and pure pay-as-you-go, detailed in the annex on pensions.
Governance: return to the spirit of 1816
The Caisse des Dépôts is placed under the supervision and guarantee of the reformed Senate, not the National Assembly nor the government. This is a deliberate return to the founding spirit of 1816: the institution that manages national funds does not depend on the executive power that might be tempted to draw from it. The Senate representing the professional bodies and productive sectors is the natural supervisory body. These are the actors of the real economy who have the most direct interest in the Caisse truly serving the nation rather than short-term political objectives.
Une commission de surveillance composée de membres du Sénat réformé exerce ce contrôle : validation des grandes orientations stratégiques, approbation du rapport annuel, saisine possible de la HCEP en cas de manquement identifié.
The director general is appointed by the king on the proposal of the Planning Commission, after binding opinion of the supervisory commission. This is not a political appointment. It is a technical and financial profile, chosen on competence, protected from day-to-day political pressures by a fixed mandate non-revocable except in the event of proven serious misconduct.
This architecture guarantees what the Caisse des Dépôts has always been in principle and rarely in practice: an institution that belongs to the nation and not to the government of the moment.