The 3 percent deficit rule originated in French domestic budgeting, not sound economics

Evidence

Originally, these rules were invented for the management of the French budgetary process before being applied in the European Union and then in Africa. One of the French demiurges of the 3 per cent public deficit rule described it as a ‘beautiful chimera’ which ‘has no other basis than circumstance’. The hypotheses underlying these pseudo-rules of sound economic management derive from the principles of so-called sound finance, or sound financial management (see Box on page 135). They are largely contradicted by empirical evidence. — Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa’s Last Colonial Currency, 348

Categorization

• XREF: Challenges the naturalization of EU convergence criteria; connects to austerity critique literature.
• QUESTION: Worth verifying which French official coined the rule and under what circumstances it was adopted.