The article focuses on the implementation of the “€˜future generations” as a new social category leading to the reorganization of public accounting and state finances. The references to the future generations in expert reports and in national and European bureaucratic discussions have contributed to solidify this floating category. Within the financial appropriations of the state, the ‘generation’ gradually becomes a recognized social group which is used to assess the value of economic and budgetary policies. The multiplication of the references to the “€˜future generations” has been detrimental to the established “€˜socio-professional categories” (CSP) and has objectified a category largely absent from economic policy debates until the 1970s. As a new and legitimate category of division of the social world that has gained currency in different contexts (bureaucratic, accounting, media), the “€˜future generations” have become the conduit for a redefinition of social policies and public finances legitimating a neoliberal conception of the state. The emergence of the “€˜future generations” has gradually held the state accountable in ways that make the future sustainability of public spending a concern of the present.