Despite the mobilizations of environmental activists, the measure has been erased from the program of candidates for the presidential election next April.
The marches for the climate are resuming in France, with a demonstration this Saturday in several cities, while the candidates for the presidential election of April 10 and 24 unveil their program one by one, in particular on ecology. In terms of green taxation, Macron’s five-year term will have claimed a victim: the carbon tax, a tax on petrol and gas which aims to encourage consumers to turn away from fossil fuels.
The Yellow Vests have been there. The planned increase in the carbon tax – perceived as unfair, because it weighs first on the most modest – was the trigger for an unprecedented protest movement in France. Since then, she has been a foil. Based on the “polluter pays” principle, this so-called climate energy contribution still exists, but no candidate is thinking of increasing it, as was planned when it was set up in 2014 under the presidency of François Hollande.
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It became even less defensible following thesoaring petrol and gas prices because of the war in Ukraine. The ” signal-price What is the carbon tax supposed to send to consumers to use alternatives to fossil fuels? is already extremely high “, notes the deputy La République en Marche, Jean-Charles Colas-Roy.
Even the Greens and their candidate Yannick Jadot no longer want it. ” In view of the rise in energy prices, I do not want today to relaunch an upward trajectory of carbon taxation. Priority must go to public policies that decarbonise », explained the MEP on a daily basis The echoes, February 9. Environmentalists no longer dare to defend, as they did before the Yellow Vests, an overhaul of the carbon tax by offsetting this tax for the poorest and allocating the money collected to ecological transition.
Instead, Yannick Jadot, like Jean-Luc Mélenchon or Anne Hidalgo, prefer to support, in different versions, a ” ISF [impôt de solidarité sur la fortune] climatic », namely a taxation of the heritage and financial investments of the richest, that is to say of those who contribute the most to global warming.
The phrase ” carbon tax has become a taboo in French political debate, unless this tax is European. A proposal is currently being discussed in Brussels and supported by several candidates including Emmanuel Macron. But the principle is not the same: it is about taxing the most polluting imported products to fight against unfair competition.
