We thought we had hit rock bottom with the National Rally’s incoherent and wasteful economic program. This was to seriously underestimate the left and its pathetic New Popular Front – poor Léon Blum… -, this shameful alliance of socio-democrats without convictions, dwindling ecologists, graying communists and anti-capitalists/anti-Semites. That personalities like Anne Hidalgo, Carole Delga or François Hollande support this delusional “program”, a pure avatar of a rebellious France which has visibly destroyed all left-wing lucidity, shows to what extent the weakness of character can sometimes be stronger than the ‘intelligence. As for Raphaël Glucksmann, it only took a few hours for Manuel Bompard to steal the spotlight, so much so that the rebel’s name is circulating as a candidate for Matignon if ever, for the misfortune of the country, this alliance prevailed on July 7.
We don’t know how to approach this program to show its indigence, as there is so much material in this area. On general philosophy first. Put on the table a program which proposes measures to revive demand through an explosion of public deficits – incompatible with our remaining in the European Union and therefore in the euro zone -, even though our country suffers from a double deficit , commercial and public finances, is a complete contradiction.
Negative competitive shock
In detail, the main measures are inept and likely to affect our economy in a short time. Let’s take the increase in the monthly minimum wage to 1,600 euros net. This increase of almost 15% would generate an increase of approximately 10% in salary costs, i.e. a negative competitiveness shock which would immediately have an unfavorable impact on employment. The restoration of the ISF, the elimination of the single flat-rate levy and theexit tax would lead, before their implementation, to a massive capital flight which would, by definition, affect investment in our economy and the level of the tax base. The timid reindustrialization underway would be stopped dead in its tracks.
The measures on purchasing power are just as baroque. Capping food prices would cause, as is always the case in such circumstances, shortages in the legal distribution circuit and an explosion of the black market. Viktor Orban’s Hungary tried to implement this brilliant policy in 2022. It was quickly abandoned. The introduction of a mileage tax on imported products will hit the most modest households, those for whom purchasing a wardrobe represents an effort of which Parisian Mélenchonist academics clearly have no idea. But the most antisocial measure, nestled in the section “Abolish the privileges of billionaires” – the bigger the better – is undoubtedly the establishment of a progressive CSG, coupled with the accentuation of the progressiveness of the The income tax, an infernal machine perfectly effective in forever preventing the middle classes from building up wealth.
Will the IMF help us?
This madness reaches its peak in the area of public finances. The same week when the Pension Orientation Council underlines that the 2023 reform will not balance the system due to the concessions made on long career systems, the New Popular Front proposes to simply abolish this reform by decree, before quietly returning to a legal retirement age of 60. This measure, which comes in addition to completely free schooling, canteens, transport, the 10% increase in the index point of civil servants and new aid of all kinds, represents an addition at the very least of 150 billion euros. Would the European Central Bank come to our aid, or will we need the intervention of the IMF?
It is difficult to say whether this program comes from an absolute loss of meaning, from resentment against a country that we wish to harm, or from a provocation to be sure not to win, and therefore not to govern. What is certain is that it is an insult to the intelligence of the French.
.