Consternation among the Wealthy in France

Le Pont Boieldieu a Rouen
Camille Pissarro (1830-1903)
Photo Credit: Birmingham Museums Trust [CCO] 

 

In a result that the pollsters had utterly failed to predict, the left-wing New Popular Front (NPF) coalition won this month's snap parliamentary elections on a manifesto that includes a 90 per cent tax band on income more than €411,000 a year, the reintroduction of a wealth tax and spending commitments of between €150 billion and €287 billion over three years.

In practice, there is little chance that the left will be able to put its programme into practice. If it formed a government, it would be a minority one, and anyway, the coalition may never get that far. The NPF is in danger of falling apart even before it has chosen its candidate for the post of prime minister.

Nevertheless, the elections have provoked anxiety among the rich in France who fear, with some justification, that the tide is about to turn against them whatever the colour of the next government.

With the country burdened by the second biggest budget deficit in the eurozone after Italy, and the third highest debt after Italy and Greece, even Pierre Moscovici, the austere chairman of France's  Court of Accounts, called this week for a new tax on the financial assets of the wealthy...

The shock is all the greater since the past seven years have been unusually fruitful for the rich in France, largely because they have had one of their own in the Elysee Palace. President Macron is a former merchant banker who worked at Rothschild in London before returning across the channel to frequent the hautes spheres of French society...

Whereas France's previous president, Francois Hollande, the Socialist, tended to flee opulence, Macron, 46 has sought it out. Every year, he holds a summit for investors in the Palace of Versailles - home to Marie Antoinette and King Lois XV1, her husband, until they were forced to leave by a mob of revolutionaries...

Marie Antoinette
Elisabeth Louise Vigee Le Brun (1755-1842)
Photo Credit: Russell-Cotes Art Gallery [CC BY-NC-ND]

More than that, however, Macron has tried to lift some of the stigma that comes with being well-off in France.

"There is in France a particular vindictiveness towards the rich," said Oliver Galland, a sociologist and director of research at the National Centre for Scientific Research, in an interview with Le Point magazine.

He attributed the phenomenon to a mixture of Catholicism and the 1789 revolution, which remains the benchmark of the national value system...

With Macron in danger of becoming a lame duck, France could well revert to its traditional hatred of the rich. In peaceful times the country shows its feelings through the tax regime. In less peaceful times, it has been known to employ the guillotine.

Wouldn't anyone earning over €411,000 be delighted to pay 90% tax if they knew that it would be spent on health or education? Surely these people have enough smart clothes, splendid roofs over their heads, delightful food to eat, excellent means of transport and amazing places to visit? What more could they want? Brioche!

They're scared. They're frightened. They're desperate.

They could be aboard a boat in the Channel right now, headed for Britain from the shores of Calais, and we must welcome them.

Of course, we're talking about the people in large boats. There's no telling just how many of France's super rich are now fleeing their country in these their luxurious yachts to avoid a proposed 90% wealth tax proposed by the Left Wing alliance which won the second round of parliamentary voting.

How heartless would we be as a society if we turned our back on these super-rich individuals who are risking the high seas on a perilous journey aboard a flimsy 70ft superyacht.

You don't board a large boat for nothing. You do it because you want a better life for you and your children, one free from an oppressive  government which might force you to pay more tax.

So yes, let's open our hearts and show nothing but kindness and generosity to the people fleeing France in these large boats, as they are almost certainly friends of our owner.

(Private Eye, No 1628)