Pressure is still mounting on the government to make contributions to companies that have made big profits thanks to inflation, and some elected representatives of the majority are now also calling for a one-off tax on “super profits,” an option ruled out at this time by the executive. .
A platform of Renaissance deputies (ex-LREM), calls from two presidents of the Assembly committee, and an amendment presented by twelve deputies to the draft amending budget, on the weekend menu at the Palais Bourbon… most enter the game to get more “solidarity” from large groups.
“We will make the speculators of the crisis pay. As I am opposed to rents, I affirm that the companies that make profits from the crisis must pay more,” commission president Lois Sacha Houlie launched on Twitter on Thursday.
15% contribution
The amendment presented on Monday by twelve Renaissance deputies, at the initiative of Stella Dupont, thus proposes an “exceptional solidarity contribution” of 15% on the profits of “oil and gas, maritime transport and merchandise companies” that “invoice more than 1,000 million euros”.
They consider that these companies “have not responded to the needs despite the logic of solidarity and equity that deserves to prevail.”
This amendment comes from elected officials from the left wing of the majority, including three former ministers, but it is a sign that the debate is growing in the presidential field and beyond.
LR not against
The LR deputies also advanced their pawns, their president Olivier Marleix believing that his party “had no hostility towards the State, by law, making more use of the oil tankers if necessary”.
So far the offensive has come mainly from the left-wing Nupes alliance and to a lesser extent from the RN. Each proposes its own, relatively similar amendments.
In the line of fire: Mainly energy companies, such as TotalEnergies, and shipping giant CMA CGM, which are taking full advantage of oil and gas prices and container shipping costs.
But can this rise to the top of elected officials lead to a vote on a tax? “There is very little chance” of that happening, they tell the Renaissance group, despite the relative majority of Macronists.
“We’ll see”, cautiously releases a government source who believes that “it is a debate that we must have”, in line with the message released this Tuesday by the majority by the Prime Minister.
Businesses “on the go”
This mobilization aims to “move the energy lines and companies,” says a deputy promoter of the tax, who believes that the Government is not firm enough.
On the executive side, we always brake with four irons. For weeks, the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, has defended the idea of voluntary contributions from companies.
These have already announced actions: transportation cost reduction for CMA CGM and pump discount for TotalEnergies.
“Should they do more? Yes, certainly,” Le Maire admitted to Le Monde on Wednesday night. “We will do the accounts during the 2023 finance bill” in the fall, he warned, echoing Emmanuel Macron who promised on July 14 a “contribution” from companies but “not in demagogy”.
While waiting in Bercy, the scope of the action of the “individual cases” among the 250 deputies of the majority is put into perspective.
Announcements at the end of the week.
In a forum on Thursday in the echoesa dozen more Renaissance deputies, including David Amiel, former adviser to Emmanuel Macron at the Elysée, rather defend the line of the executive, asking “solemnly the hydrocarbon companies for a new and urgent strategy to help the French”, under penalty to “defend the fiscal measures that were necessary”.
Government spokesman Olivier Véran “expects” “announcements” by the end of the week to have “something immediately visible … to the French,” he told France info on Thursday.
It is the angle of defense: to affirm that a gesture of the companies will have an immediate effect on the purchasing power, when a tax will go to the coffers of the State, later. Especially since a group like TotalEnergies makes most of its profits internationally, which reduces the impact of a tax levied in France.
Source: BFM TV
