France’s prime minister, François Bayrou, has proposed scrapping two public holidays as part of radical measures aimed at reducing the country’s ballooning deficit, boosting its economy and preventing it being “crushed” by debt.
Outlining the 2026 budget on Tuesday, Bayrou suggested Easter Monday and 8 May, when France commemorates Victory Day, marking the end of the second world war, although he said he was open to other options.
The centrist prime minister said: “The entire nation has to work more so that the activity of the country as a whole increases, and so that France’s situation improves. Everyone will have to contribute to the effort.”
France is under pressure to bring its public deficit, running at 5.8% of GDP, under the 3% figure required by EU rules, and to rein in €3.3tn of public debt – on which the annual interest, of €60bn, could soon become its biggest budget outlay.
Or, just tax the rich.
Right? Why is it always “make life harder for the working class” and never “make billionaires pay their fucking share”???
France has “only” 40 billionaires and also has the second-highest marginal tax rate in the EU at 55.4%. I know billionaires are the favourite whipping boy of the left and of Lemmy, and I support taxing them in general, but it won’t fix this problem.
There’s a difference between having high marginal taxes on the rich, and actually collecting them
Do you want France to have tax agents as effective as the IRS?
I’m French. I want them 100 times more effective. You have no idea how much the rich French love tax optimization (and fraud – it’s been estimated to 100+ bn/year a few years ago).
The average fortune growth of the top 500 French families for the last 20 years is 14% a year. They can spare a dime.
Not to mention that I keep hearing stories about the IRS getting budget cuts. You guys just have a seemingly-mistaken impression that the IRS knows it all because they have citizens run the numbers while also doing the math themselves due to corporate lobbying from turbotax and the like, but it’s actually a good thing when your tax office has good information. Y’all should concern yourselves with how politicians make them use it.
But they should reduce pensions because it only benefits older people who could be used for more research, defense and infrastructure.
If income increases, but you don’t manage it well, the problem won’t be solved.
why not just lift the age limit of pensions to 90, right?
Tax on what, labor income?
Because that is not what the rich live off. On the contrary it makes building wealth harder for the working class.
Also how do you arrive at 55.4%?
All I could find was a marginal income tax rate of up to 45% + an additional 3-4% for incomes over 250k.
https://fr.icalculator.com/income-tax-rates/2025.html
Are you adding social security as well?
I think what matters more is wealth disparity not actual wealth when discussing countries outside of the US. How much more wealthy are they than the average person in their country. You can’t just focus on wealth in terms of US dollars because there are parasites in each country with varying degrees of wealth in comparison to the average American billionaire.
When someone says “billionaires,” you can go ahead and include in that figure all those whose net worth is between 8 and 12 digits
In my opinion, the government shouldn’t be offering services left and right, just what’s necessary.
If people want freedom, that’s fine, but the government isn’t going to take on many responsibilities.
If people want comfort, that’s fine, but they should follow the rules the government imposes.