Comment: French PM's talk of taxing rich is just a gimmick

It is exactly a decade since a French government quietly dropped a 75% income tax rate on the super-rich that was meant to dig the country out of recession. 

François Hollande – the Socialist president who infamously expressed his “hatred” for the very wealthy – backed down from the flagship economic policy after industrialists and celebrities such as movie stars and footballers threatened to leave the country. 

French MPs reinforce new budget’s tax rises for wealthy

Just as harmfully, companies across France said the punitive measure was anti-business, and that it was just a silly gimmick aimed at appeasing Mr Hollande’s left-wing voter base. 

Ten years on, and it is now a free market conservative prime minister who is ostensibly launching a tax raid on high earners so as to bring down a colossal debt that has seen France’s public deficit soar to almost double the 3% of GDP limit set by the EU.

Michel Barnier claims a tax hike on the rich will bring in billions to the 2025 budget. Without getting into the nuts and bolts of his specific proposals – fiscal analysis requires reams of numerical data – what he is really trying to do is create useful headlines.

Like President Hollande before him, Mr Barnier wants to appease the left, in the form of the Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP) parliamentary coalition. 

It successfully kept the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) out of power during parliamentary elections over the summer, but Marine Le Pen’s party remains the largest in the Assemblée nationale. 

Democracy has thus created an extremist parliament and – without a majority of his own to rely on – Mr Barnier is forced to push populist measures that will earn him the support of both the NFP and the RN. 

Both sides are supported by millions of hard-up French citizens. They instinctively detest the rich, not least profit-obsessed capitalist stooges, including company bosses, bankers and landlords. 

Thus, Mr Barnier told parliament that “The sword of Damocles hanging over us is our colossal financial debt,” and that the “richest part of the population” would be forced to remedy the situation.

Such flowery, simplistic language is meat and drink to the power-to-the-people brigade but, as in 2014, government promises mean very little.

Anybody can play around with numbers to make it look as though “the rich” are paying more in tax, and that seems to be what Mr Barnier is doing. 

His calculations overlook the multiple opportunities for tax avoidance in countries including France, not least of all – as during the Hollande administration – by simply moving cash to other parts of the world. 

Multinationals are as adept at this kind of manoeuvring within the global economy as high-worth individuals. 

Aware of the loopholes, and conscious that talking tough needs to be backed up by results, Mr Barnier even reduced his fiery rhetoric to a polite request when grilled by business journalists, saying: “We are going to make an exceptional and temporary appeal to those who can contribute to this effort”. 

Scooter François Hollande used to visit his lover to be auctioned

What should be kept in mind above all is that the financial whizzkid who forced  Mr Hollande to drop his punitive tax rate in 2014 was Emmanuel Macron, the newly appointed economy minister. 

When Mr Macron took over from François Hollande as head of state three years later, he was very soon dubbed “The President of the Rich”.

Mr Barnier’s ultimate boss is as obsessed with high finance as he was in 2014, making his primary constituents the multibillionaires behind Gallic commercial giants, such as luxury goods conglomerate, LVMH, and L’Oréal, the cosmetics corporation. 

Macron-economics might have a place for gimmicky talk about tax increases nowadays, but protecting big business will always be his priority.

Do you think that France needs to levy more taxes on the wealthy? Or is this just a ploy to please left-wing voters? Let us know via letters@connexionfrance.com