Attacked on its economic credibility, Nupes presents its emergency plan for purchasing power

It is an exercise in unison which we must now get used to, on the left. On Wednesday, May 25, the leaders of the forces of the New Popular Ecological and Social Union (Nupes) developed a chapter of the “shared program of government” unveiled last week: the one devoted to purchasing power. No coincidence in this theme, central to the campaign of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, which has become a totem including for the government of Elisabeth Borne, which intends to give pledges on this point throughout the legislative campaign in the face of growing inflation, without yet present a text of law before the elections of June 12 and 19.

Also read the column: Article reserved for our subscribers Thomas Piketty: “The agreement reached by the left-wing parties marks the return of social and fiscal justice”

Faced with Nupes, economists are divided. Some, like Thomas Piketty welcome the return of social and fiscal justice. Others, like Philippe Aghion, former godfather of Emmanuel Macron in 2017, recently undertook a full attack on the Nupes program, perceived as the fruit of “false thinking” leading to disaster according to the words chosen by the latter in The echoes. In note for Terra Nova, the banker and associate professor at the Ecole Normale Supérieure Guillaume Hannezo also predicts a disastrous future for the alliance: “To face the European, financial and monetary crises that await it while being preceded by a reputation of rather exotic Bolivarian affections; afflicted with an unprecedented deficit, entirely structural, and therefore with an explosive dynamic of public debt. »

Consensus

Jean-Luc Mélenchon responded on Wednesday to “commentators” who “think that inflation is the result of a perverse loop between prices and wages”: “No, that’s not true. It’s the profit / price loop (…) For us, the heart of inflation is speculation, overprofit, the interruption of global production chains for more or less distant causes of covid and war in Ukraine … » Faced with those who accuse him of wanting to destroy the economy, the leader of the “Nupes” assures on the contrary that he wants to do everything to avoid the “collapse” and rectify the course, by doing, he said, “pay inflation to profits rather than wages”.

The measures presented have the advantage of achieving consensus among the Nupes forces: increase in the minimum wage to 1,500 euros net per month by decree, increase of 10% in the index point for civil servants, increase in retirement pensions so that no full retirement pension is lower than the revalued minimum wage, implementation of a “dignity guarantee” so that no Frenchman lives below the poverty line (1,063 euros for a single person), autonomy allowance for young people from the age of 18 but also the supervision of rents for “cut the chain of inflation”.

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