“We will not deviate an inch from the only economic policy that has given the best results that France has known for 40 years: the policy of supply,” he said at a furniture factory in the group. Fournier, which notably manufactures Mobalpa kitchens, to Alex, in front of Savoyard employees and industrialists.
In recent days, employers have sounded the alarm against a questioning of the trajectory of tax measures favorable to companies, pointing in particular to the spreading over four years of the abolition of a production tax, the Contribution on added value des entreprises (CVAE), which Bruno Le Maire confirmed.
This tax, which weighs particularly heavily on industrial companies, was halved this year and was to be abolished in 2024, but the government has chosen to spread out its abolition, at a cost reduced to one billion euros per year for public finances.
“We must continue to lower taxes”
“At the end of 2027, the CVAE will be definitively abolished”, however assured the minister. More generally, “we must continue to lower taxes: we will do it on production taxes because it penalizes industry and we will also do it on households, income tax with a reduction of two billion euros that we will make as soon as the conditions are met”, added Bruno Le Maire in front of journalists.
Anxious to better protect patents and intellectual property, he announced that he wanted to strengthen the control of foreign investments, by extending it “to the activities of extraction and processing of critical raw materials”, recalling that China has done the same.
The control, automatic when a non-European investor buys 10% or more of the capital of a firm, would be extended to the acquisition of stakes in “French branches of foreign companies”, he specified. For entrepreneurs, the minister also said he wanted to “continue to simplify” and to do this bring together “a foundation for simplification in the next three months”. He also indicated that he wanted to work “for the rapid development of employee shareholding”.
Cardinal value
Bruno Le Maire insisted on the need to “continue the reform of unemployment insurance”, for which the government has sent the social partners a very tight roadmap, with the aim of reaching an agreement on new rules. compensation by November 15.
According to him, a greater gap between income from work and benefits is necessary to reduce the unemployment rate from 7% to 5%. “Work will remain the cardinal value of our economic policy,” he insisted, castigating “all the fads of returning to retirement at 60 and ‘working less’ which have led to our collective impoverishment”.
The secretary general of the Confederation of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (CPME) Jean-Eudes du Mesnil told AFP that the minister’s speech aroused “a feeling of hope” but wanted “more coherence between ideas that go in (their) direction, and practice”.
A desire to tackle the recovery of fines
Thus, the CPME does not admit defeat on the CVAE which it hoped to abolish this year, and will now “discuss with parliamentarians” before the debate on the draft budget this autumn. Bruno Le Maire again said he wanted to tackle the recovery of fines. “No one can understand (…) that you have hundreds of thousands of fines that are never paid, by people who do not respect any rules”, he pinged.
“I cannot accept that only a third of the tort fixed fines are actually paid,” he insisted. Nobody is authorized to make “arms of honor to the common rules”, added the minister, who spoke three days before his colleague from the Interior Gérald Darmanin.
The latter hinted that he could be a candidate for the presidential election of 2027, an intention also attributed to the tenant of Bercy despite his denials. “I have no criticism to make of a friend, a government colleague who expresses his sensitivity, who brings people together and who is obviously part of the presidential majority,” said Bruno Le Maire.