The message is clear for Michel Barnier: Gérald Darmanin still does not want to hear about a tax increase. And to prevent the government from committing a fiscal tightening, the former Minister of the Interior put forward potential savings on Sunday with the objective of making the French “work more”.
“A fiscal shock does not make economic policy. And this path risks killing growth and creating mass unemployment,” he warns in a daily interview. Les Echos. “When you take the tax slide, everyone ends up being affected,” he warns.
For Darmanin, we need to “work more”
As the presentation of the draft budget by the Prime Minister approaches on Thursday, the Northern MP is therefore continuing his campaign of opposition to the temporary and targeted tax increases that the government is planning.
“It is paradoxical that a Prime Minister from the LR has as his first measure the sharp increase in corporate and capital taxes. We lose our Latin,” Gérald Darmanin annoys, believing that “the issue in France is that we don’t work enough.” “The right answer” would therefore be to “work more”, continues the Ensemble pour la République MP, announcing in passing that Michel Barnier will go to the meeting of the EPR group in the Assembly on Tuesday.
Play on public holidays
Gérald Darmanin then proposes several savings levers: a reform of public broadcasting, “the elimination of a second public holiday in both the public and private sectors”, the transition “to 36 or 37 hours” of weekly work in the public sector, or the increase in registration fees for foreign students. “Another option is to set up a second waiting day for sick leave in the public service,” suggests the parliamentarian from Tourcoing, who wants to “put a definitive end to the 35 hours.”
Although a member of the “common base” on which Michel Barnier intends to rely in the National Assembly, Gérald Darmanin also announces that he will not “vote” the part dedicated to revenue in the finance bill for 2025, if it remains as is. “On the other hand, I could vote for savings in public spending,” he specifies.
