Feathers are flying again in France as President François Hollande’s socialist government has become embroiled in a wrangle with the self-employed, weeks after settling an angry dispute with Les Pigeons, France’s internet start-up community, reports the Financial Times.
The battle this time is with Les Poussins – the chicks – a group furious at government plans to impose restrictions on some 900,000 people benefiting from a law passed under former President Nicolas Sarkozy that eases bureaucracy and tax conditions on those setting up their own small businesses.
By Sunday, almost 60,000 supporters had signed an online petition launched by Les Poussins against changes in the so-called ‘auto-entrepreneur’ regime.
Proposals to limit the length of time businesses can benefit from the preferential status to between two and five years “risk breaking the purpose of the regime and putting hundreds of thousands of us in difficulty”, the petition claimed.
The campaign deliberately copied that launched last year by Les Pigeons (slang for the suckers), which eventually forced the government to reverse sharp increases it had planned in capital gains taxes on entrepreneurs and investors selling out their businesses.
Read more of this report from the Financial Times.