Where to find new money? After the publication by INSEE of the amount of the French deficit at 5.5% of GDP, beyond expectations, the government must think of ways to increase its revenues. Logically, raising taxes would be an obvious solution.
“We have always said that we would not increase taxes
,” recalled the head of government on the set of TF1 this Wednesday March 27, without completely rejecting an increase in taxes. Gabriel Attal, however, detailed
“two red lines.”
:
"do not increase taxes on the middle classes, on French people who work or French people who have worked all their lives and who always earn a little too much to have help but never enough to be able to get by adequately on their own"
, nor those
“for what makes it possible to finance the work of the French”
.
The presidential promise to reduce taxes on the middle classes by 2 billion was not addressed by the Prime Minister. The day before, his Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, had nevertheless reinforced this commitment, despite the bad news piling up on the public accounts front.
“I think it is important to maintain our economic policy strategy,”
he argued, “
I would not like us to forget that public finances serve an economic policy objective.”
“No dogma” on superprofits
“France is not a tax haven for anyone
,” the Prime Minister then declared, when asked about an increase in taxes for the wealthiest households.
“10% of French people pay 70% of income tax
,” he added.
Questioned about a tax on superprofits, Gabriel Attal was less categorical.
“I have never had a dogma on the subject,”
he declared in particular before recalling that energy companies and biology laboratories had already been subject to a specific tax.