EDITORIAL. With his remuneration of 36.5 million euros, does Carlos Tavares illustrate the powerlessness of the government in the face of large private groups?

Validated Tuesday by the group’s shareholders, the staggering remuneration of the CEO of Stellantis raises a political outcry and plunges the majority into embarrassment. It brings back the question: should we legislate to limit the income of big bosses?

The remuneration of the CEO of the car manufacturer Stellantis, Carlos Tavares, could reach 36.5 million euros for the year 2023, a tidy sum, essentially indexed to the excellent results of the automobile group. The group’s shareholders validated this sum with 70.2% of votes on Tuesday, April 16, during the general meeting. Remuneration which immediately sparked an outcry on the left and revived proposals to legislate to limit the highest incomes. The majority are embarrassed. It was Carlos Tavares himself who lit the fuse by saying: “If you think this is not acceptable, make a law, I will respect”.

La France insoumise jumped at the opportunity and announced the tabling of a text to cap pay gaps from 1 to 20 in companies. Olivier Faure urged Yaël Braun-Pivet to include a PS bill already tabled on the Assembly’s agenda. Remember that in 2012, François Hollande considered regulating private sector remuneration, before giving up. In power, the left was content to limit those of managers of public companies to a maximum of 450,000 euros per year, or 80 times less than Carlos Tavares.

Emmanuel Macron’s sticking plaster

If the executive is embarrassed, it’s pbecause the remuneration of the CEO of Stellantis sticks to Emmanuel Macron like the sticking plaster to Captain Haddock. In 2022, it was already expected to reach 66 million euros and the Head of State had judged this sum “shocking” And “excessive”. He had promised to “to fight” to impose a cap on employers’ income at European level. Two years later, nothing has changed. Carlos Tavares has become the government’s guilty conscience. As an illustration of public powerlessness in the face of large private groups.

In an attempt to defuse the controversy, the government leans more towards the fiscal weapon, but be careful, at the international level and not the French one. Traveling to Washington, the Minister of the Economy and Finance, Bruno Le Maire, will once again demandminimal taxation of the largest fortunes on a global scale. But on the national level, Gabriel Attal has contented himself, for the moment, with setting up a task force to work on the taxation of annuities. There is therefore no question of regulating the highest salaries in the private sector. Should we limit ourselves to bosses? After all, 36.5 million euros for Carlos Tavares is much less than the 56 million net annual salary of Kylian Mbappé at PSG.