"We must leave all the doors open."
Asked this morning by
RTL,
Bruno Le Maire assured that the government was ready to make an effort to offset the rise in the price of fuel, as it recently did with the energy check for gas and electricity.
On the same subject of energies, he also attacked two presidential candidates head-on: Xavier Bertrand and Anne Hidalgo.
See also Presidential: on the right, Xavier Bertrand's proposal flops
“
On diesel and gasoline, if the surge continues, we will have to react,
therefore assured Bruno Le Maire.
We did it on gas and electricity, so if it is necessary to do it on fuel, we are ready to do it.
"The Minister of the Economy, however, recalled that the"
coherence
"of the government, which deflected a third of its recovery plan towards green growth, was"
rather to subsidize electric vehicles and fast charging stations
".
"The candidates lose all consistency"
While Anne Hidalgo has advocated in recent days a reduction in taxes on fuel, Bruno Le Maire criticized a "
complete inconsistency
" on the part of the mayor of Paris "
who wishes to finance fossil fuels
" while waging war on motorists in his city.
"
We are not at an inconsistency
," continued the minister.
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Same subject - energy -, another victim: Xavier Bertrand. The president of the Hauts-de-France region, also a candidate, regretted that the State, which he said received two billion euros from the increase in taxes in absolute value, did not redistribute only 500 million through the energy check. "
The candidates lose all consistency,
" said Bruno Le Maire
. I do not know where this figure comes from, but he forgets that when there is an increase in these taxes, there is an increase in charges on companies, and therefore a reduction in corporation tax
”which arrives in the state coffers. "
All these calculations do not hold water, let's get back to consistency
," the minister concluded on this subject.
Purchasing power is not [a communication plan], it is a political line.
"
Nuclear defense
For Bruno Le Maire, the “
real structural response
” to be provided to counter the surge in energy prices is to be found in Brussels and the European Union.
“What is scandalous,
” he said, “
is that the price of energy is the cost of running the gas-fired power stations that we run [at the other end of] Europe. The price [of energy] must not be indexed to the price of gas, but to the average cost of manufacturing energy in France. ”
He also reiterated his attachment to nuclear power.
"What the energy crisis shows us very bluntly is that we need to be more independent, [and therefore] reinvest in nuclear power."
Investments that will not be long in coming, since Emmanuel Macron's objective is to accelerate the development in France of the technology of small modular reactors, or small modular reactors (SMR).
Read also Energy price: Pascal Canfin against "the extension of the carbon market to heating and transport"
Bruno Le Maire was finally questioned about the Pandora Papers scandal, this investigation into tax fraud carried out by several media.
"I asked the DGFIP [to identify] French taxpayers in this list,
" he said.
We are going to look for [those] who cheated and [we will be] intractable with [them]. "
To do this, Bercy will set up a
"task force"
composed in particular of magistrates from the National Financial Prosecutor's Office and specialists from the General Directorate of Public Finances.
"We will check every euro cent
,
"
assured Bruno Le Maire.