Israel-Hamas war, controversy over social housing, public accounts deficit… Eric Coquerel’s “8h30 franceinfo”

The LFI deputy, chairman of the Finance Committee at the National Assembly, was the guest of “8h30 franceinfo” Saturday April 13.

Eric Coquerel, Nupes (LFI) deputy for Seine-Saint-Denis, chairman of the Finance Committee at the National Assembly, answered questions from Jules de Kiss and Hadrien Bect.

Middle East: “It is not Iran that threatens peace in the region, it is Israel”

For Eric Coquerel, “Israel is setting the region on fire” And “allows itself to strike on sovereign countries”like Lebanon and Syria. “Today it is not Iran that threatens peace in the regionsays the LFI deputy for Seine-Saint-Denis, It’s Israel and more precisely it’s Benjamin Netanyahu who is in a kind of headlong rush to stay in power.”

Regarding the situation in the Gaza Strip, Eric Coquerel assumes to use the word “genocide”: “Netanyahu’s primary intention is not to take revenge or end Hamas, but to end the Palestinian entities in Gaza and the West Bank”he says.

Social housing: “An announcement effect” which hides “the real problems”

The government’s idea of ​​evicting tenants who have become too well-off from their social housing “is an announcement effect”, castigates Éric Coquerel. Friday, in the columns of Echoesthe Minister for Housing Guillaume Kasbarian declared that he wanted to encourage the exit from social housing of tenants who “have significantly exceeded the income ceilings”. For the rebellious elected official, this measure masks “the real problems”namely that we “is no longer building enough social housing in this country”.

Éric Coquerel believes that in France “there has been less than 10% public investment in housing since 2017”. “We have never built so little social housing in France for 30 years”, he regrets. The member for Seine-Saint-Denis therefore calls for “build more”. “We must stop making policies that disintegrate social housing”he adds.

Public accounts: for a “policy to revive economic activity through ecological transition”

“We certainly need a policy to revive economic activity through ecological transition”, argues Éric Coquerel, LFI deputy for Seine-Saint-Denis, while France’s public deficit reached 5.5% of GDP last year according to INSEE, beyond the 4.9% initially forecast by the executive. The president of the Finance Commission believes that it is necessary “return to a fairer, more redistributive tax”. He also regrets the absence of measures concerning “the ecological transition”, which he judges to be “the largest debt”.

Éric Coquerel considers that this budgetary slippage is not “a drama”. “It above all marks the failure of government policy”, he criticizes. MP Insoumis is convinced that France’s debt “is assumeable”especially since we are not, according to him, “a failed state”. For him, “the question is not, contrary to what the government says, to increase taxes for everyone, but to stop lowering them badly as we have done for five years”. He also accuses the government of having “mainly lowered taxes on the richest, even the ultra-rich.”

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