Elisabeth Borne “does not close the door” to a taxation of “super profits” of companies

Elisabeth Borne said Saturday in Le Parisien not to “close the door” to a taxation of the “super profits” of companies, while preferring that the company which can “lower prices for the consumer and give purchasing power to its employees. “No one would understand that companies are making exceptional profits even though the French may be worried about their purchasing power,” said Elisabeth Borne in her first interview since the summer break.

“I’m not closing the door to taxing super profits,” added the Prime Minister, who is to speak Monday before the Medef, at a time when prices are soaring all over the world due in particular to the war in Ukraine. But, she specifies, “I think that the most effective and the most concrete for the French is when a company, when it can, lowers prices for the consumer and gives purchasing power to its employees “.

“Everyone must be responsible”

“As a priority, I think that companies that make super profits must return purchasing power to the French by mobilizing the measures voted in early August” such as the tripling of the purchasing power bonus, known as the “Macron bonus”, without social charges nor taxation, recalls the head of government who promises that she will be “attentive to what they do”.

Some companies “have already made commitments, we will ensure that they are respected. In the current period, everyone must be responsible,” she insisted. Even if she recalls that the government has not “stopped lowering taxes” and that she is not going, in this regard, “to radically change her position by (starting) to impose taxes on all companies”.

Regulate private jets

The taxation of “super profits” is debated even within the majority, while MoDem deputies pleaded in early August for a “reflection” in the fall on this point, referring in particular to a “flash mission” launched by the commission finances. The First Secretary of the PS Olivier Faure for his part announced on Friday that he was going to propose to his Nupes partners the organization of a referendum of shared initiative on this taxation.

Regarding the use of highly polluting private jets, which has sparked debates within the government and which certain ministers would like to regulate, Elisabeth Borne affirms that “owners of private jets must, like everyone else, participate in the reduction of gas Greenhouse effect “.

Launch of a “green fund”

In front of the executives of the majority gathered in Metz on Saturday, she also considered “indispensable” “the exemplarity of the most favored” but that she had to “be part of a global approach” and planned on ecology. In this regard, she announced the release of a “green fund” endowed with 1.5 billion euros intended for local authorities to “help them in accelerating their ecological transition”.

Elisabeth Borne suggests using this fund for “the rehabilitation of wasteland to limit urban sprawl”, to renovate “energy-efficient public buildings such as certain schools”, to bring “nature back into cities” or even to install ” relay car parks” at their entrance.

Contain the price spike

Faced with soaring prices, especially energy, she promised that the executive would “not let energy prices explode”, and would cushion “the increases”. After the tariff shield, which ends at the end of the year, “we will keep mechanisms to cushion energy price increases. And we will take specific measures to support the most vulnerable, ”assured the Prime Minister.

With AFP