The Zucman tax, a 2% tax on the wealth of the 1,800 people with more than 100 million euros, has been definitively rejected by a vote in the National Assembly.
Oh, that tax wasn't going to break the bank! Harmless for capitalists, it wouldn’t have taken away any of their power to exploit millions of workers. A 2% tax wouldn't even have made a dent in their immense fortunes, which are growing at an average rate of 5 to 6% per year. It just gave the illusion of a little more social justice which is why the Socialist Party defended it before abandoning it in favor of other deals with Lecornu.
But that tax caused the bourgeoisie to rise up in arms, triggering an intense media campaign. “Expropriation!”, “Fiscal fury!” some shouted, as if the ultra-rich were going to be thrown out onto the streets or forced to eat at soup kitchens!
We could laugh if it weren't so outrageous – as millions of women and men are really struggling to feed themselves, find housing, heat their homes, and pay for healthcare. Hundreds of thousands have been laid off, deprived of their livelihoods, driven from their homes because they can no longer afford their rent or mortgages. And they have no choice but to pay their taxes, starting with the 20% VAT paid on most purchases.
Bernard Arnault, the man who received three billion euros in dividends from the LVMH luxury goods company in 2024 and invested that money in his financial holding company so that he wouldn’t have to pay taxes on it, personally addressed the issue saying that the Zucman tax was designed by a “far-left activist” and showed a “deliberate attempt to bring down the French economy.”
The government along with centrist and right-wing politicians and Le Pen and Bardella as well came to the rescue of these “poor” victims. They all expressed their opposition to taxing “business assets”. As if they were defending the craftsman's workshop, the baker's oven or Uber drivers!
Using highly figurative language, Lecornu declared that implementing such a tax would be “killing the cow” thus “giving up any hope of ever having milk again”. But the richest people in the country — the Arnault, Pinault and Hermès families, the Wertheimers who own Chanel and the Bettencourt Meyers who head L'Oréal — haven’t invested in a herd of cows or in products that are essential to society. They deal in art, luxury goods and cosmetics. If we do have milk, we owe it to the work of farmers and workers who aren’t afraid to roll up their sleeves and get their feet dirty in the muck!
The so-called “business assets” of these 1,800 ultra-wealthy individuals are shares they hold in industrial and commercial companies, and they have never set foot in most of the factories or warehouses they own.
It is too much of an honor to call them investors. They are rentiers who invest their capital where they hope to make a buck. In recent decades, they have only deigned to invest where the state has funded them and guaranteed they’d hit the jackpot.
Recently, they allowed Carmat, a company that produced artificial hearts, to go bankrupt because it was 350 million euros short. These so-called investors weren’t interested in investing in a company that was saving lives. They only have eyes for the soaring stock prices of the military and artificial intelligence sectors!
So let's not buy into the notion that society rests on their shoulders, that the country's prosperity depends on their prosperity or that we owe them everything! The opposite is true. The ultra-rich are first-class parasites and the first to live off of benefits. They are completely useless if not outright harmful.
Their riches, which they would like us to bow down to as if they were new, untouchable gods, should long ago have become the collective property of all workers because they were made with the sweat of generations of workers, technicians, employees and engineers. Yes, we produce everything, including the capital they use to exploit and control us!
So, when we are evenutally able to put up a fight and make them back down, they will of course resort to their usual blackmail, threatening to leave the country. That’ll be when we’ll have to push the standoff further and tell them: "Go ahead, you can leave: we’re keeping the factories, the companies, the banks and the capital that we produced! Leave! We’ll invest in what’s useful and run society our way: not for profit, but for the needs of all!”
Nathalie Arthaud