France’s Socialist President Francois Hollande’s key ‘soak the rich’ 75% tax pledge has been drastically watered down, according to Le Figaro which doesn’t reveal its source. The tax won’t apply to rich couples. And it will only apply to income, not property or financial assets. A single person will be taxed if he earns more than […]
Posts Tagged ‘France’
72% of French people want referendum on permanent austerity treaty
Aug 27th, 2012 by Tom Gill.72% of French people want a referendum on the Fiscal Compact treaty, according to a poll. The CSA poll, conducted for l’Humanité newspaper, comes as the radical Left Front renewed demands for the decision to be made by this method a popular vote by all the French people. President François Hollande plans to adopt the new […]
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Radical Left Mélenchon calls for mutiny against Hollande
Aug 22nd, 2012 by Tom Gill.French radical left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon has called for a mutiny by Socialist Party ministers disenchanted with the policies of President Francois Hollande. Melenchon, a former Socialist minister who left the party and stood against Hollande as a candidate of the radical Left Front in the presidential elections this year, said ministers who opposed Hollande’s policies […]
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French socialists soak the rich
Aug 19th, 2012 by Tom Gill.France’s new socialist government is pushing ahead with highly popular promises to make the rich and corporations shoulder a far greater burden of the costs of the economic crisis. There will be a big one-off increase in wealth taxes and surcharges on banks and energy companies in the country’s supplementary 2012 budget. An extra €2.3bn will […]
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French radicals to start referendum campaign on ‘Permanent Austerity Treaty’
Jul 6th, 2012 by Tom Gill.The radical Front de Gauche (Left Front) is to launch a campaign for a referendum in France against the Fiscal Compact, known by critics as the Permanent Austerity Treaty. Agreed on 2 March 2012 by 25 EU countries, minus Britain and the Czech Republic, the EU Fiscal Compact – a German invention officially known as Treaty […]
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Hollande to present austerity treaty gift wrapped to French Parliament
Jun 30th, 2012 by Tom Gill.(In the Radical Press – Humanité) It’s done. François Hollande announced Friday afternoon that he would submit the fiscal pact (Treaty on the stability, coordination and governance in the Economic and Monetary Union – TSCG) to be ratified by the French Parliament. During his Presidential campaign he had promised to renegotiate it and would not […]
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France’s socialists and a fitting executive pay cap
Jun 14th, 2012 by Tom Gill.The French government this week announced plans to cap the salary of public sector chief executives at €450,000 per year. The decree, which will be released by the end of July assuming the socialists win a majority in the parliamentary election run-offs on Sunday, is designed to limit the accumulation of incomes, including fixed and variable […]
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French elections – more bad news than good?
Jun 13th, 2012 by Tom Gill.First the good news. The Right is not only out of the Elysee Palace but it is on course to have lost control of parliament too. And in its place is probably the most progressive of social democrat parties in Europe today. The Socialists’ programme includes boosting industrial investment, youth employment and teacher numbers, hiking […]
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Hollande and the French economy (part 1)
May 16th, 2012 by Andy Newman.Enthusiasm for François Hollande’s new government in France is understandable, as it provides a popular mandate for an economic alternative to austerity, and a programme for economic growth. As Trevor Martin exhorts in his recent Tribune article “Let us follow where Hollande leads”. Michael Meacher sketches an outline of what Hollande’s policies would mean translated […]
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Hollande’s message for Labour: focus on jobs, growth and an end to austerity
May 7th, 2012 by Michael Meacher.There are several important implications in Hollande’s convincing victory over bling-bling Sarkozy. It’s not just the first Socialist presidential win for 31 years, even more significantly it clearly marks a turning point in European politics, though a lot still depends on how forcefully and skilfully this wedge against the dominant Right is used. But the […]
