Wealthy people in France are to face an onslaught of financial audits in a clampdown on tax evasion that is broadly seen as an attempt by President Macron to curry public favour after his unpopular pension reforms, reports The Times.
The government began its “unprecedented” crackdown on tax avoidance and evasion with a blaze of publicity as part of Macron’s promised “100-day” drive to reconnect with the public and respond to deep discontent about perceived injustice. This has been fuelled by his executive order imposing a two-year rise in the retirement age to 64.
Opponents on the left and right have mocked the tax drive, which aims to recover billions in unpaid taxes from “the rich” and big companies, as a cosmetic measure to help Macron, a former investment banker, allay his image as protector of the well-off.
Eric Coquerel, an MP from the radical left opposition party La France Insoumise who heads the parliamentary finance committee, said: “We’ll have to see if all this is not just about marketing and making a splash.”
Philippe Murer, an economist close to Marine Le Pen’s hard right National Rally, called the campaign “a crude attempt to make people believe that he’s going to tackle tax evaders”, adding that Macron would “have difficulty making people forget that he is ‘the president of the rich’ and great friend of bosses and millionaires”.
Announcing the measures, Gabriel Attal, the public accounts minister, said Macron was aware of the public mood. “Obviously, we hear the demand for justice. That’s the goal of the tax fraud plan that the president has asked me to present,” he said.