Πηγή: advfn
By Gabriele Parussini
08/28/2011 @ 9:44PM"It's a pleasure I savor at every moment to see these marches of rich people (…) who ask, beg, implore to be taxed more!" Francois Hollande, the front-runner candidate based on recent opinion polls, told a party congress this weekend. He was referring to an appeal by the country's well-heeled, led by Liliane Bettencourt, France's richest woman and the heiress of the L'Oreal SA cosmetics empire, to contribute a higher share of their income toward the balancing of public finances. "I'm telling them: just wait for us, we're coming!"
Martine Aubry, Hollande's closest challenger among five candidates called in a letter to voters for higher taxes on large companies traded on the stock exchange while party secretary Harlem Desir called for higher taxes on capital gains, stock options, bonuses and "the super profits of banks and oil companies."
The debate on wide-ranging fiscal reforms is gaining traction in France after the government was forced to roll back earlier tax cuts and introduced an emergency EUR12 billion tax package amid stalling economic growth, in a bid to reassure investors about the country's creditworthiness.
The issue is particularly sensitive for Sarkozy, who was elected in 2007 on pledges to protect the country's richest households from France's high income and payroll taxes.
Socialist leaders widely agreed on the need to restore public finance sustainability while still rejecting a government-sponsored "golden rule" for limiting future budget deficits - a constitutional amendment which needs their votes to garner a 65% majority in the Congress of both houses.
"No, we won't vote for the golden rule, but that doesn't mean we're for higher spending," Manuel Valls, another presidential hopeful, said in an interview. "What we need is a serious, rational plan to bring public spending under control."
Still, contradictions remain. Laurent Fabius, a former prime minister who supports Aubry, said that if a Socialist president came into power next year, he would repeal the current policy of non-replacement of half of the civil servants going into retirement, a measure adopted by Sarkozy, which is expected to reduce headcount by 150,000, or 7% of the total, in the five years to 2012.
Irrespective of political leaning, France's next government will have little room for maneuver, forced to stick to a plan that aims at balancing the budget - still expected to show this year a 5.7% shortfall on gross domestic product - as economic expansion is cooling and will only reach 1.75% this year from the 2% previously anticipated.
While united in their criticism of the government of President Sarkozy -- who hasn't yet said whether he'll run next year, but is widely expected to -- Socialist leaders also traded barbs, as they tried to convince the 5,000-strong audience in this Atlantic port town of who will be the best candidate to grant the party a victory next year.
Hollande would garner 41% of preferences among left-leaning voters, according to an Ifop survey published Sunday on the Journal du Dimanche, a weekly, with a 10-percentage point lead over Aubry. Segolene Royal, who lost to Sarkozy in 2007, garnered 13% of preferences among the 854 people polled, while both Valls and Arnaud Montebourg hovered at around 5% each.
The first round of the primaries is slated for Oct. 9, with a run off between the first two candidates a week later. According to a PS official, the party expects about a million voters to cast their ballot for one of the five candidates.
The shadow of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former International Monetary Fund chief and a prominent French socialist politician, loomed large over the congress. Strauss-Kahn was leading opinion polls for the presidential election before being arrested in May on sexual-assault charges.
It's unclear if Strauss-Kahn will enter the race after after the charges that cost him his job and tarnished his reputation were formally dismissed on Aug. 24. Some of his partisans gathered in La Rochelle to voice their support.
"If he wants to come back, he knows he has an army at his orders," said Antonio Duarte, the president of Club DSK, a spontaneous support group which claims 10,000 active members and 2,000 paying supporters. "His comeback would completely change the political game."
But some of the former IMF chief's closest allies sounded skeptical.
"I don't think he's going to run," Jean-Christophe Cambadelis, who's now supporting Aubry, said. "He needs to reconstruct himself first, and then decide calmly what he's going to do."
No comments:
Post a Comment