Bernard Arnault (LVMH), Guillaume Faury (Airbus), Florent Menegaux (Michelin) … Several large French owners have expressed themselves in the media and the Senate in recent weeks to complain about the temporary increase in taxes on large companies planned in the Budget in preparation in France for the year 2025, while saying that it was not necessary to be surprised if the industries decided to relocate. This Thursday, January 30, it was the president of Medef to castigate the French taxation system on RTL, and to consider that Bernard Arnault was “right” to threaten to leave for the United States: “He is obviously right, Like other major business leaders who have expressed themselves in the same direction on taxation, “said Patrick Martin. According to him, “anger rises” among the members of Medef, in the face of the economic choices of the government.
Threats of relocation
“In the USA, taxes will drop to 15 %, the workshops are subsidized in a series of states and the president (Trump) encourages this,” said Bernard Arnault on Tuesday during the presentation of the 2024 results of LVMH. “When we come back to France and we see that we are preparing to increase the taxes of companies that make in France by 40 %, it’s incredible. To push relocation, it’s ideal!” denounced the billionaire, castigating “the taxation of the made in France”.
The leader of the French luxury giant referred to the temporary tax surcharge on the companies provided for in the finance bill for 2025, for companies that achieve more than 3 billion turnover only, which should bring in 8 billions of euros this year.
“The misunderstanding turns to anger” among the members of the Medef, abounds Philippe Martin, and “the consequences are that those who can leave. And they are right”. “When you have a country that has growth, attractive conditions in terms of energy prices, taxation, you go, it’s normal,” said the president of Medef.
Threats of relocation that join the statements of Guillaume Faury, Managing Director of Airbus. Pointing the finger “too many charges, too many regulations, too many constraints, too many taxes”, he had stressed in early January that it was “extremely difficult to resist American attractiveness”, “when we see the no -European attractiveness and uncertainty “. Florent Ménégaux, director of Michelin, had also made similar remarks during his hearing in front of the Senate, Wednesday January 22, just like Patrick Pouyanné, director of Totalenergies, during a conference organized in December by the French Union of the electricity (UFE).
“Indecent”
These criticisms are struggling to go to the left and within the government. “I understand his anger. I understand that in the budgetary condition in which we are, everyone must take part in the efforts,” reacted Sophie Primas, the government spokesperson on Wednesday during the report of the Council of Ministers, While recalling that the planned surcharge should be temporary. The Paris PCF senator Ian Brossat estimated that Bernard Arnault’s words were “indecent”, recalling that in the United States, companies pay less since “there is not even social security. “”
According to the environmental senator Guillaume Gontard, questioned by Public Senate, the surcharge envisaged by the government “is perhaps the only element, precisely, which puts a little bit of tax justice”: “I remind you that LVMH is 17 billions of profits this year. The LVMH group reached 12.55 billion euros in annual net profit, although down 17 %. “We see that there are companies that are doing well, that make profits and dismissal. Michelin, for example. So yes, we need to put conditionality in state aid and to involve everything The world on national effort, “said Guillaume Gontard.