the program of the New Popular Front “is generous, but expensive”, analyzes economist Emmanuelle Auriol

Left-wing leaders detailed the program of the New Popular Front for the legislative elections on Friday June 14. A program impossible to implement according to economist Emmanuelle Auriol.

“It’s a program that is extremely expensive. It’s generous, but it’s very expensive”said Friday June 14, on franceinfo, the economist Emmanuelle Auriol, professor at the Toulouse School of Economics and member of the Circle of Economists, after the presentation of the program of the New Popular Front for the legislative elections.

For Emmanuelle Auriol, “No”, this program cannot be implemented. The economist recalls that “when the government announced the measures of the plan it had to consolidate public finances in April, the High Council of Public Finances expressed doubts about compliance with the objectives presented”. She compares it with the program of the New Popular Front which “spend infinitely more”. “We are going back on the savings that had been made. So our debt, if we follow this policy, will explode”assures the economist.

“We live on credit”, underlines Emmanuelle Auriol. “50% of our debt is held by foreigners.” According to her, “if the French debt explodes like this and the markets stop trusting us, we could find ourselves in a situation similar to Greece, but also to Italy”. The economist compares with what happened in 1992 in Italy when “the Italian government had put a tax on all the savings accounts of Italians to finance the Italian debt. They had taken 15 billion euros. In Cyprus, on the verge of explosion, they took 50% of the savings of Cypriots”.

Emmanuelle Auriol denounces in particular “the reestablishment of the ISF, the taxation of profits, the elimination of a certain number of tax loopholes”planned by the New Popular Front to finance these measures of “social justice”. “We stopped the ISF not because it penalized the rich” but “because it’s not very effective. That’s the problem”, explains the economist. She ensures that its removal in 2018 “did not affect public finances”. “If the goal is to finance something, we have to collect money and it’s not with the ISF” that we are going “finance”.

ISF “doesn’t bring in much. It’s a tax that affects very few people”adds Emmanuelle Auriol. “Very rich people, they are very agile, they have lots of advisors, they manage to find ways to avoid taxes.” She points out the fact that “when Bruno Le Maire wanted to tax the super profits of energy companies, he did not succeed”. The economist estimates that “this is not a problem that France can deal with alone”. “This is a problem that must be addressed at the European level. There are discussions at the OECD level to have a minimum of taxation on companies. But this is not something that we are going to do all alone in our corner.”

“I think that the French have a vision of France and of the state of the economy in general which is not very realistic”adds Emmanuelle Auriol. “They have to look elsewhere.” She admits that there is “problems indeed”but emphasizes that we have “remarkable infrastructures, we have a network in terms of public hospitals which is important, we have a way of taking care of health, which is not the case in rich countries like the United States, England “. These are “benefits, but at a cost”alerts Emmanuelle Auriol. “And so this French social model to which we are all attached, we must be careful not to tip it over.”