For several months, inflation has had a heavy impact on the wallets of the French. Between the rise in the price at the pump, food products, gas and electricity, Fabien Roussel, the national secretary of the French Communist Party (PCF), estimates on Europe 1 that many will have to “choose between food or heat this winter.
“What the government is asking of us is to lower the heating to 17 degrees, to put on a sweater, but we are not going to ask anything of those I am pointing at, those who generate superprofits, who continue to have a train of phenomenal life, who vacationed on yachts, who rode jet skis,” he exclaimed on Tuesday.
“We ask more of the little ones and little of the big ones”
“Everyone must make an effort at their level. Everyone must do their part. However, what I see today is that we ask more of the little ones and little of the big ones,” he said. .
“The biggest polluters, those who are responsible for 40% of greenhouse gas emissions, are the richest 10% on the planet and it is from us, modest citizens, that we are asking for efforts”, he lamented on Europe 1. The PCF secretary also said he was in favor of a tax on superprofits. This measure would target groups that made 20% more profits in 2021 than the average for the previous three years, if adopted.
The Prime Minister even affirmed on Saturday not to “close the door” to the taxation of superprofits while the government had so far shown itself to be resistant to this proposal made by centrist senators.
“Energy is a common good”
“Energy is a common good”, continues Fabien Roussel. “We need it to heat our homes, to bring warmth to our newborn baby, for the elderly… However, today, we speculate with energy, we gamble on the stock market for the price of the energy and the government’s reaction is to say ‘turn down the heat, make an effort'”, he thundered.
“If we are here today, it is because of a total deregulation of the energy market which follows the privatization of EDF-GDF, which follows the liberalization of energy prices on the European market and which means that the price of energy is fixed according to the price of gas and that traders are rubbing their hands,” he said.