For the past decade, the far right has been edging closer to power in France. And for the past eight years, the overarching response of President Emmanuel Macron has been the same: to make France more business-friendly, on the theory that a growing economy could serve as a bulwark, reports The New York Times.
It hasn’t worked. France’s growth has been modest. Its debt has ballooned. And with every election, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally has kept gaining support.
This year, there was an attempt to try something different: a 2 percent tax on France’s ultra rich — the 1,800 individuals worth more than 100 million euros. Most French people support the idea. Macron opposed it.
Today, France is in turmoil (again). Macron appointed a new prime minister (again) after the last one lost a confidence vote over austerity measures. Protesters blocked roads (again). The far right is polling higher than ever.
The wealth tax was a chance to combat the notion that Macron’s business-friendly France benefits only the rich. It wouldn’t have solved the debt problem — but it would have had tremendous symbolic value.
The contention of the far right (which is pushing for its own tax on financial wealth) is that elites are looking out only for one another. Many in France feel this is precisely what is happening. Far from weakening the far right, Macron may have inadvertently strengthened it.
A former banker, Macron ran on an unabashedly free-market platform when he first beat Le Pen in 2017: Make it easier and cheaper for companies to invest in France. They’ll create jobs. That’s how you win back voters from the far right.
Over the past eight years, he has cut corporate taxes and payroll taxes and abolished an existing wealth tax. All this cost the French treasury tens of billions of euros. At the same time, he raised the retirement age.
Then France’s debt level — never low — surged during the pandemic. It’s now widely seen as unsustainable.
It’s against this backdrop that the government collapsed this week. It was unable to pass a budget that sought to freeze welfare spending, scrap two public holidays and cut pretty much everything except military spending.
Read more of this report from The New York Times.