Twenty-seven Macronist deputies oppose a tax increase

While Prime Minister Michel Barnier is considering a temporary increase for the wealthiest, Aurore Bergé, Marie Lebec and Macronist elected officials believe that “restoring accounts requires above all a reduction in public spending”.

Twenty-seven deputies from the Macronist group Ensemble pour la République (EPR) oppose, in a text published by The Tribune Saturday September 28, to any increase in taxes, while Prime Minister Michel Barnier plans to make those who can contribute more, “exceptionally and temporarily”.

“It seems to us (…) unthinkable that after seven years of tax cuts, it is the central bloc alliance that ends up giving up fiscal stability to increase them,” write Mathieu Lefèvre and Charles Rodwell, joined by former ministers Aurore Bergé and Marie Lebec, or by the former president of the group Sylvain Maillard. The authors also believe “unthinkable” to question the “clear course defined by the three budgetary programming laws of the Ministries of the Interior, the Army and Justice”.

For them, “restoring accounts requires above all a reduction in public spending” and, to achieve this, they recommend “the cult of the performance of our public policies”there “suppression of dozens of Théodule agencies and committees”, “the simplification of public action and the reduction in the number of civil servants while preserving our local public services”. Arguing thate “the restoration of public accounts requires above all the creation of wealth and full employment”they call for “carry out courageous reforms, particularly that of unemployment insurance”. And they call for continuing the “merciless fight against social and tax fraud”.

Faced with a deterioration in public accounts, Prime Minister Michel Barnier has put on the table the possibility of increasing certain levies, as the thorny 2025 budget arrives. “On the question of taxation, I said that I would protect from any tax increase those who are on the ground, who work, who produce. We are going to appeal, exceptionally and temporarily, to those who can contribute to this effort”he declared Friday in The Saône-et-Loire Journal.