Macron's 'trickle-down economics': French poverty at 'highest level' in decades, hunger on the rise

Well, NGO Oxfam earlier this week filed a lawsuit against the French state over its tax system. The organization, which advocates for more economic equality around the world and in France, accuses the state of failing to guarantee equality before taxation, a right inscribed in the Declaration of Rights from 1789. The move sets the tone as French lawmakers begin negotiating next year's budget with an aim to resolve the country's worsening public finance crisis, which means potentially more taxes. Joining us live now is Nicolas Verken. He's Oxfam France's Director of Advocacy. Thank you so much for joining us. How exactly is the French state failing to guarantee equality before taxation? Many of our viewers aren't French and have this idea that France is a country with both a high tax burden and high redistribution as well. After all, according to the OECD, the country has a 46 or 47 percent tax to GDP ratio. Yeah, it's not so much about how much the percentage of tax and the burden of overall tax system is who you tax and for what. When Emmanuel Macron came to power in 2017, based on studies from Institut des politiques publiques, Observatoire français des conjonctures économiques, we published a report saying the tax agenda of Emmanuel Macron will weigh on the poorest and just will have the richest get away with contributing to general interest. and at the time we got the answer that no no you don't understand it's going to trickle down it's going to support investment and growth and everyone will benefit from from that that was in 2017 we are nine years later and guess what unfortunately we were terribly right we've got the highest level of poverty in france than we ever had since the french national statistics Bureau started documenting them. We have the highest level of people suffering from hunger since we have the statistics in France. And at the other side of the spectrum, we have billionaires who have grown like they have never before. The 32 people who were billionaires in 2017, when Emmanuel Macron came to power, these 32 people, their wealth has doubled in nine years. And France, which used to be a rather equal country, is now behind the European average of equality. So the situation has definitely worsened regarding poor people and very rich people. And this is the direct effect of the tax agenda that Emmanuel Macron has been implementing and you're right France is not any country regarding equality in front of every town hall of this country you have liberté, égalité, fraternité and the 1789 declaration of of human rights and citizen which is part of French constitution puts equality at its heart and equality vis-a-vis tax specifically and what we have is when you are very very rich in France, you actually pay less taxes than poor people, middle class people, because you have many ways of avoiding tax, doing some tax scheme. And at the end of the day, you pay proportionally less taxes than a nurse or a firefighter. And we'll get into how this actually happens. I just want to intervene here. Oxfam, as a first step in this process, you're asking the French state for compensation to make up for this unequal taxation this is in the form of the uh the famous zuckman tax named after a french economist gabriel zuckman which would impose a two percent duty on the assets of the wealthiest households um why and and tell us more exactly how that works you you're on your way there but i wanted to butt in yeah yeah i mean actually we're not asking the state to to implement this or that specific tax we just say look look it has been documenting that the tax system is broken and that the constitution is not upheld now it's your duty as state to respect the constitution and adopt all necessary measures this is what we're asking and so and we know there are many ways to to redistribute uh better the wealth and to better tax the richest. Zucman tax is one. You have stronger wealth tax is another one. Better taxing inheritance is also another way. So this is the first step. And we have written to the ministries. They have two months to show their good faith and say, OK, you're right. We've not done things right. And now we're going to remedy to this situation by adopting this policy and changing that thing. If they don't do that within two months, then we will actually go to court and ask the judge to say the state has failed and it needs to remedy the situation and to ensure the constitution is upheld. A lot of people would say that this is not actually an actual lawsuit with the realistic objective of winning here, that it's more of a publicity stunt and a way to put pressure ahead of those budget talks taking place currently. What do you say to that? Is this a publicity stunt? Oh, this is really serious. We've already filed a lawsuit against the state a few years ago for climate inaction, and the state got condemned once and twice. And it's very important to have an independent judiciary being able to make assessments and saying when the executive, it's not doing what it should do. So it's going to take time. It's not just about this ongoing conversation about the 2017 budget. It's going to take two, three, four, five years. And this trial will also be the responsibility of the next president and the next government coming in 2017. And at this stage, when we look at the platforms of the various candidates, we are much concerned because many of them are actually just suggesting to continue the same tax agenda. And so they will have to answer to the judge to what extent they are upholding the constitution. Isn't there a sense as well that a lot of these measures that have to do with taxing assets as opposed to income aren't popular with a lot of French people who have a lot of savings, had a lot of assets, and even if they're not the wealthiest, are scared of that kind of policy Yeah, again, we're not talking about you and me, lower classes, middle classes, not even rich people. We're talking about the very, very rich people, not even the 1%, but the 0.01%. Because these people who are multimillionaires and billionaires, they have a specific way of evading tax, building up like tax optimization and sometimes tax evasion schemes. And they are actually, and it's proven and documented by independent think tanks, academic, that they are paying less taxes than everyone else. So it's really about remedying this situation when you can't have Bernard Arnault paying less income tax than a French nurse or a French firefighter. Nicolas Vercken, you are Oxfam France's Director of Advocacy. Thank you for sharing your insights on this, frankly, historic lawsuit that you've started against the French state over this inequality in taxation in France. Thank you for your insights.