[HIGHLIGHTS] “The tax on second-hand books, the latest avatar of the escalation of tax measures”

Emmanuel Macron announced a 3% tax on second-hand books at the Paris Book Festival on April 12. Erwann Tison, economist and director of the Sapiens Institute, sees this as an illustration of the aporia of the executive in matters of economic policy.

Tison: "The second-hand book market has shown growth of 30% over the last five years, a sign of its dynamism and the existence of a growing demand for these exchanges. The symptom of this rejection of the long term in our political life, shared by all parties, is undoubtedly the absence of impact studies of public action, he says. In 2020, he published a book on autonomous cars, called "A robot in my car: let's not miss the revolution of autonomous transport." The book will be published by MA Éditions, a division of Le Monde, at a cost of around £20,000 ($30,000). Tison: "It is reassuring to say that French genius in this area will continue to ensure constant production" There is a strong appetite for announcing surprising measures but devoid of ex-ante evaluation. This allows their authors to secure a prominent place in the news of the day but does not constitute a structuring long-term policy for the nation. This is how we end up with measures that were popular at the time of their announcement but harmful in the long term. The primacy of certain sectional interests over the construction of tomorrow feeds a powerful resentment which questions the balance and justice of public action and its capacity to think about the future of a country beyond the next election. The escalation of fiscal and regulatory measures, which are added to absurd subsidies such as the patching bonus or the wood check, are all decisions which end up weakening public speech. It reflects the deep evils of our political life, steeped in contradictory injunctions, where seduction is more important than evaluation, and where improving a popularity rating takes precedence over structuring the future of a nation. It points to the total decorrelation between political posturing and concrete results in the daily life of the French.