French left promises new taxes as snap elections approach

Left-wing parties in France promised on Friday to raise 30 billion euros a year by taxing companies and the rich if they win a majority in parliamentary elections, drawing the ire of centrists and business leaders.

The promises to finance new social donations come at a time when the left is trying to reach the lead of the far-right National Party (RN) in the polls – both well ahead of the president. Emmanuel Macroncamping.

Socialists, Greens, Communists and far-left France Unbowed (LFI) will “immediately reinstate a wealth tax with a climate component” to raise “15 billion euros” ($16 billion) if they enter the government, socialist senator Alexandre Ouizille told journalists in Paris.

A tax on corporate windfall profits would bring in an additional €15 billion, predicts the New Popular Front (NPF) alliance.

They plan to spend the money to reverse Macron’s hugely unpopular increase in the official retirement age, as well as to increase housing and unemployment benefit payments and public sector wages.

Olivier Blanchard, former chief economist at the IMF, called the NPF’s plans “essentially confiscatory in nature” in a message on Twitter.

“It is difficult to see how this will not lead to business owners moving their operations elsewhere en masse,” he added.

In a sign of weakening confidence, French debt yields have soared since the president called early elections following a defeat in European polls, as investors react to lavish spending plans from the left and the RN.

France’s public finances are already under pressure, with outstanding debt of around 110% of GDP – more than three billion euros – and a long-running government deficit that on Wednesday earned it a rebuke from the European Commission.

Bond markets are showing “the direct consequences of totally senseless and irresponsible economic and financial plans” from both the left and the far right, Macron’s Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Friday.

He promised to bring France’s deficit back to the EU’s notional limit of three percent by 2027, up from more than five percent this year.

The RN, in turn, promised to confront Brussels over the party’s plans to reduce VAT on fuels – prohibited by EU rules that aim to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

– ‘Electoral anti-Semitism’ –

Ministers led by the Prime Minister Gabriel Attal they hammered home the message that they are the only bulwark against two “extremes” on the left and right.

“Today there are three blocs, two of them extreme that feed each other, because they are fed by divisions among the French, by the stigmatization of some French people,” Attal said in Marseille on Friday.

RN’s main messages revolve around opposition to Islam and immigration, with its manifesto promising to “stop the flood of migrants”.

But allegations of anti-Semitism resonated louder this week, intensified following the rape of a 12-year-old girl by two teenagers allegedly motivated by hatred of Jews.

Some figures in the LFI, the largest party in the left-wing alliance, have been accused of anti-Semitism over their reactions to the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza.

“There is no equivalence between the contextual, populist and electoral anti-Semitism used by some members of the LFI and the founding, historical and essential anti-Semitism of the RN”, which was co-founded by a former Waffen-SS member, lawyer Arie Alimi and historian Vincent Lemire wrote an article for the daily Le Monde.

Although “it cannot be disputed that there is a resurgence of anti-Semitism on the left”, they insisted that “the NPF is the only electorally credible alternative to prevent an openly xenophobic party from taking control of our institutions”.

The left’s electoral program includes a condemnation of Hamas’ attack on Israel and a plan to combat racism and anti-Semitism.

– Run for proxy votes –

As voters rush to prepare for the elections on June 30 and July 7, more than a million have already registered to vote by proxy in the elections taking place at the start of the summer holiday period.

The number was up from 1,055,000 on June 20, the Home Office said, already surpassing the number seen in the June 2022 parliamentary elections, when people had better warning and were more likely to be at home.

Some eyes were also already focused on the Paris Olympic Games, which will begin at the end of July, and which Macron did not shy away from using to appeal to voters to choose stability.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said on Friday he would not continue in his post overseeing security at the Games if Macron’s side lost the elections, “even if for just a few more weeks.”

However, “the Olympic Games were well prepared, everyone knows and appreciates that”, he added.

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