At the Ensemble pour la République group meeting this Tuesday, at the Assembly, Gérald Darmanin spoke and recounted his meeting with the Prime Minister, Saturday afternoon. “Michel Barnier told me during our meeting that he will increase taxes,” revealed the resigning Minister of the Interior. “We don’t know who, we don’t know his policy or his budget, and we have to go there? Can Michel Barnier come and see us to talk to us about the substance before his general policy speech,” continued Gérald Darmanin.
According to our information, Michel Barnier also mentioned this hypothesis of increasing taxes to other interlocutors he consulted this weekend, “Michel Barnier is very tempted to look for ways to save money by going to corporate tax”, confides this Source. Furthermore, around Michel Barnier, some LR elected officials close to him are arguing for the reestablishment of the Wealth Tax (ISF) judging that it is a popular measure acclaimed by the French. And that such a measure would also send a signal to the left which is arguing for the return of the ISF.
“I’m going to have to raise taxes, and it’s not out of a light heart”
But touching taxes and increasing them is a red line for the Republicans, who have very clearly mentioned it several times to Michel Barnier. At a meeting of the Droite Républicaine group this Tuesday morning, Laurent Wauquiez also returned, during a discussion on the draft finance bill (PLF) and without a direct link to his recent meetings with Michel Barnier, to the financial situation and the level of taxation. “Wauquiez told us that it made no sense to increase taxes, that we are already at the top of the table. On the other hand, he told us that we are spending badly and that the revenue is there, in the expenses,” relates a participant.
The president of the DR group recalled that “work must pay” more and that inheritance tax had to be reversed. “Michel Barnier is in favor of a tax on excess profits and the richest,” adds an LR Source. “Barnier considers that since Macron there has been an unprecedented enrichment of the richest in France,” continues this Source. “For us too, it’s a red line!” hammers a member of Ensemble pour la République; Emmanuel Macron having always wanted the new Prime Minister not to unravel the policy pursued for seven years. And for the RN too, which would then justify triggering a motion of censure.
If tax increases are back in the debate, it is also because of the catastrophic state of public accounts. In our columns, on September 7, the first president of the Court of Auditors, Pierre Moscovici, considered that “the tax debate must not and cannot be taboo.” In private, Prime Minister Michel Barnier does not hold back from lambasting Bruno Le Maire’s record at Bercy, whose lessons he has not appreciated much, as he learned in his acceptance speech: “I am going to have to increase taxes, it is not out of a light heart, but I must do it because the management is catastrophic,” according to the Prime Minister’s comments reported by his interlocutors.
“The information you share is based solely on hearsay,” Matignon responded to Le Parisien-Aujourd’hui en France. “The only thing the Prime Minister said is that he would not rule out moving in the direction of greater tax justice. That is the only direction.”
