DLet’s be clear from the start: the agreement reached by the left-wing parties is excellent news for French and European democracy. Those who see in it the triumph of radicalism and extremism have obviously understood nothing of the evolutions of capitalism and the social and environmental challenges that we have been facing for several decades.
In reality, if we examine things calmly, the transformation program proposed in 2022 is rather less ambitious than those of 1936 or 1981. Rather than giving in to the ambient conservatism, it is better to take it for what it is: a good starting point on which it is possible to rely to go further.
The adopted program first marks the return of social and fiscal justice. While inflation has already begun to amputate the incomes and savings of the most modest, it is urgent to change course. Those who claim that “whatever it takes” will not be paid by anyone are lying to citizens. For to protect the most vulnerable from the effects of inflation and to finance investments in health, education and the environment, it will be essential to involve the most well-off.
Curious sense of priorities
Between 2010 and 2021, the 500 largest French fortunes have passed, according to the magazine Challenges (little suspect of leftism), from 200 billion to nearly 1,000 billion, that is to say from 10% of GDP to nearly 50% of GDP. The increase is even greater if we broaden the focus and examine the wealthiest 500,000 (1% of the adult population), who today exceed 3,000 billion euros (6 million euros per person, according to the World Inequality Database), against barely 500 billion for the poorest 25 million (50% of the adult population, owning each 20,000 euros on average). To choose in the midst of such a period of spectacular prosperity of the highest estates and stagnation of the most modest to abolish the meager wealth tax, when, obviously, it should have been increased, testifies to a curious sense priorities. Historians who will look at this period will not be kind to the Macron governments and their supporters.
The first merit of left-wing parties is to have been able to overcome their conflicts in order to oppose this drift together. Beyond the restoration of the wealth tax, it is proposed to transform the property tax into a progressive tax on net wealth, which would allow significant tax reductions for millions of over-indebted French people from the working and middle classes. . To promote access to property, the whole could be supplemented, in the long term, by a system of minimum inheritance for all.
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