France To Increase Beer Tax by 160% — But Not Wine Tax

I don't have much to add to what is included in the following Bloomberg report — expect that yet again, François Hollande's comment about health reasons (what a lie!) and the fact that he found one area where France's tax rate is not the highest in the world show again what an ignorant demagog he is.

The French government passed this week a law that adds 480 million euros ($628 million) in new taxes on beer, while leaving wine unscathed. 

“The government doesn’t want to touch wine and Champagne producers because they are much too powerful,” Bogaert said in an interview at his small brewery in Aix-Noulette in northern France, which employs eight people and has 1.5 million euros of revenue.

With beer levies rising 160 percent to bring in the extra receipts, the 2 billion-euro industry is bracing for shrinking sales, investments and jobs. 

Danish brewer Carlsberg A, which owns France’s biggest beer brand Kronenbourg, says it may have to cut jobs in the country.

[...] The beer tax is part of the 24.4 billion euros in additional revenue French President Francois Hollande’s government is trying to raise to meet a pledge to cut the budget deficit to 3 percent of gross domestic product in 2013 from 4.5 percent forecast for this year. The government also cited health considerations when it announced the beer-tax increase. 

Taxes from wine and Champagne makers amount to about 120 million euros, while for brewers it’s being raised to more than 800 million euros, Chevremont says.

[...] The wine industry -- from grape growers and wine makers to distributors -- employs 250,000 people in France. That compares with about 75,000 for beer -- from barley growers to sellers of the brew. 
 [...]
The new tax may boost beer prices by 20 percent, curb consumption and investment and lead to job losses and possible bankruptcies, the Brewers’ Association estimates.
Some expect worse.
“With the tax expected to lead to a 25 to 40 cent increase in the price of a small beer, this will further accelerate the existing trend from café to home consumption, which has already contributed to the closure of 12,000 establishments since 2007,” Bergeron said.

[...] The French president shrugged off concerns, saying France’s tax rate is far from the highest in Europe.

Mittal Not Welcome in France Said French Industry Minister - Unions Hugely Disappointed that the 600 Jobs Have been Saved

Only in France, the land of blind socialism and wealth destruction, can you read stories such as the one below.

Reading these 50 years ago during the cold war, or reading about North Korea or in some banana republic in Africa or Lat Am would not surprise me. But this is France, still one of the largest economies in the world, even though the speed of its collapse seem to be on track to be of historical proportions.

By employing the Duck Test, I can hence conclude that France is banana republic, in between a communist regime and a dictatorship by some uneducated and unintelligent leader.

The question remains: Who would still want to do business in France, create jobs or companies there, after seeing this?

By a complete lack of understanding — or maybe a total demagogic lie — the French Prime Minister concludes: The government has shown its ability to intervene to find positive outcomes for jobs and investment. OMG!

(Bloomberg) 2012-11-27 — President Francois Hollande will meet today with Lakshmi Mittal, chief executive officer of ArcelorMittal, the world’s biggest steelmaker, after a member of the French government called for the nationalization of the company’s troubled local unit. The meeting at the Elysee presidential palace in Paris follows Industry Minister Arnaud Montebourg’s remarks to Les Echos newspaper yesterday that the state “doesn’t want Mittal in France anymore,” accusing the company and its CEO of lying and calling Mittal “the problem.” Mittal’s family told Le Monde dated today it was “extremely shocked” by the comments.

Montebourg’s remarks, which also include a call for a temporary state control of the company’s activities at the Florange steel-making site in north-eastern France, are the first sign the government will hold industrial companies to commitments on jobs and long-term investments, said Karine Berger, a lawmaker from the Socialist Party. [...]

While ArcelorMittal wants to shut down the furnaces at Florange, it wants to continue operating other activities at the site. It is opposing the sale of the whole of the Florange site, saying that would risk the viability of the rest of its operations in France, where the company employs 20,000 people. Montebourg says he wants the company to accept one of the two offers that he has for the whole of the Florange site.

(Bloomberg) 2012-12-01 — ArcelorMittal won’t go ahead with planned job cuts at its Florange steel mill in northeast France and will invest 180 million euros ($234 million) in the plant over the next five years, French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said. In a televised statement this evening, Ayrault said the government was dropping its threatened nationalization of Florange because of ArcelorMittal’s commitments.

“The government has shown its ability to intervene to find positive outcomes for jobs and investment,” Ayrault said. “ArcelorMittal’s engagements are unconditional, and the government will take all steps necessary in the case of non- compliance.” President Francois Hollande had given Lakshmi Mittal, the chief executive officer and biggest shareholder of the world’s largest steelmaker, until tomorrow to either keep the 600 threatened jobs at the plant, sell all of it or face its nationalization. Industry Minister Arnaud Montebourg said a week ago that Mittal is no longer wanted in France. [...]

Some union leaders said they weren’t satisfied with Ayrault’s announcement. “It’s not what we expected from a Socialist government,” Frederic Maris, a representative of the CGT union, said in a live interview on BFM television. “We were expecting a new buyer or a nationalization. We don’t want to see ArcelorMittal any more. It’s a huge disappointment.”

Fortunes Flee France While Politicians Add Fuel to the Fire

A few days ago, Gérard Depardieu was leaving France and exiling himself in Belgium for tax reasons.

Depardieu is one of the most famous and most respected personalities in France mostly as an actor, but not only:

Gérard Depardieu is a French actor and filmmaker. He is a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur, Chevalier of the Ordre national du Mérite and has twice won the César Award for Best Actor. He also won the Golden Globe award for Best Actor in Green Card and was nominated for an Academy Award for the title role in Cyrano de Bergerac. Since 7 December he lives officially in Néchin, Belgium. (Source: Wikipedia).

His action was qualified by J-M Ayrault, the French Prime Minister, of "pathetic". Unfortunately, those socialist governing France are one of amazing lot whose ignorance of economics and politics is stunning, but also who seem to be simply acting like gangsters.

Now Gérard Depardieu has published an open letter to Ayrault, letting him know that he will give up on this French citizenship: "Who are you to judge me so I ask you, Mr. Ayrault, Prime Minister Mr. Holland, I ask you, who are you?" "I've never killed anyone, I do not think unworthy, I paid 145 million euros in taxes of forty-five years, I paid in 2012, 85% tax on my income and I employ 80 people (...). I am not to complain or to brag, but I refuse the word "pathetic", "says he, repeating the word that does not pass. Word choice on which Jean-Marc Ayrault has since recovered a little. "I give you my passport and Social Security which I've never used," warns the actor.

Now the question is, who on earth would be happy to pay 85% of their income for the government made of such insane and ignorant people to go and waste it?

More available on this report from the Figaro (Google translation here). There's also a video interview, which lasts 15min and which I didn't listen to as it makes me feel sick. The one sentence I heard was that "J-M Ayrault has a big plan to fight poverty - because there are more than 8 million poor people in France" and he said that "When he sees the compensations of the CAC 40 CEOs, he is proud to have created the 75% tax bracket for those making more than 1 million euros".

My comments on the two points:

•  If the government could stop poverty, everybody would be "rich". Since being rich is a relative compared to those who are poor(-er), it would basically mean that everyone body is poor. Reducing the gaps between the rich and the poor is always a one way process: making the rich less rich and keeping the poor as poor (as there are so many poor compared to the rich ones).
• There are 40 CEOs in the CAC40. Even if each of them would make 100 million euros, and they were taxed at 100%, the government would only bring in 4 billion euros. A drop in the bucket.

Moreover, it appears that the current government, pretending to try to lever the social gaps and reduce the poverty gap — apparently by trying to make everyone poor — is actually working on creating social class warfare and attacking the "rich" (or, basically, attacking the minority, an easy target, specially in a democracy).

With people fleeing France as there are no jobs and taxes are skyrocketing, and entrepreneurs and investors having an extremely high incentive to NOT create any jobs or even companies, and also more away, the social mood is extremely low.

And with the government attacking on personal grounds those who do good to the country, and, in the end, the true patriots who decides to stop funding this destructive and corrupt policies.

The conclusion is that you can expect thing to sour at an exponential pace in France — the country has been in shambles since WWII and the only President over the past 70 years who made France move forward was Charles de Gaulle. Since he left every one of them has worked toward bringing the countries to its knees. And it might be that Holland will be very very successful and achieve this very quickly from here.

France's Richest Man, Bernard Arnault, Requests Belgian Nationality

Bernard Arnault, France's top fortune, and world's 4 richest man according to Forbes has applied for the Belgian nationality (link the Figaro; which report I do not quote as it didn't translate nicely in Google Translate).

After making an impressive fortune mostly taking advantage of the rules and laws in France; it's good to see that Bernard Arnault has decided to take his money out of France, which is probably the ship sinking the fastest in Europe at the time being. This is another blow to the inept policies of François Hollande and actually, the French President should be happy with the news since he's already stated publicly that he doesn't like the Rich.

France Bailing Out CIF, A Large Mortgage Lender

The collapse is now at the doorstep of France; which is surrounded by Spain; Italy; and is after all, the only country not officially part of the Club Med while the Club Med is actually a French company and laziness and corruption and lies a way of life.

(Bloomberg) — The French government, which rescued Dexia (DEXB) SA, now faces the challenge of saving real estate lender Credit Immobilier de France without spending taxpayers’ money.

Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said yesterday on radio station France Inter that a guarantee the state agreed to provide CIF won’t hurt the government’s budget. The state has so far been unsuccessful in finding a buyer for CIF, a Paris-based mortgage bank owned by 56 local cooperative lenders.

“The state has taken its responsibilities in providing a guarantee, but as this bank has its own capital, the money of taxpayers won’t be called upon,” Ayrault, 62, said in the interview on France Inter.

Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici said in a statement on Sept. 1 that the government would provide a guarantee for CIF. The backing is worth 20 billion euros ($26 billion), Les Echos reported today, without saying where it got the information. The rescue follows the state bailout of Franco-Belgian lender Dexia, which needed aid in 2008 and in 2011.

French Financial Transaction Tax Comes Into Force Today

From Interactive Brokers:

Interactive Brokers would like to inform clients of the French Financial Transaction Tax (FTT) enacted in March 2012 and which comes into force 1 August 2012. Key information regarding the tax is provided below:

Tax Rate: The rate is currently set at 0.20%

Tax Base: The tax is assessed on the purchase of certain French equities. The French Ministry of Finance has released a list of 109 French companies whose securities are subject to the FTT. The tax is due on the net position delivered on settlement date, as such purchases and sales which settle at a common depository will be eligible to be netted for determination of the tax.

Effective Date: The FTT is applicable to trades of August 1, 2012.

Note that this yet another tax, yet another act of spoliation and stupidity is not done by François Hollande's government, but by the supposedly right wing Nicolas Sarkozy. 

France Still as Socialist Today as in Toqueville's Time

A few days ago, I was talking to a university professor near the retirement age, and he showed me he's payslip: while he's making about 12,000€ a month (quite a high figure if you ask me!) after all the deductions the government makes, he receives only about 4,800€ in his account at the end of the month, on which he has to pay income tax (about 800€ according to him). So his net income after all direct taxation is 4,000€.

That's the cost of running this enormous and ineficient government, and you have to remember that the university professor's income is quite average, and that most politicians in France will tell you that there isn't enough taxes (indeed there isn't, since the country has been running massive deficits every year, for the past 50 years).

France has been unable to make any political and economic progress in the past 200 years, and has been stuck in a socialist mindset ever since the Enlightenment and the French Revolution.

Here's an interesting quote from Alexis de Toqueville, that matches 100% my current impressions from France, and what we're hearing in the media.

"One thing was not ridiculous, but really ominous and terrible; and that was the appearance of Paris on my return. [...] I saw society cut into two: those who possessed nothing, united in a common greed; those who possessed something, united in a common terror. There were no bonds, no sympathy between these two great sections; everywhere the idea of an inevitable and immediate struggle seemed at hand. Already the bourgeois and the peuple (for the old nicknames had been resumed) had come to blows, with varying fortunes, at Rouen, Limoges, Paris; not a day passed but the owners of property were attacked or menaced in either their capital or income: they were asked to employ labour without selling the produce; they were expected to remit the rents of their tenants when they themselves possessed no other means of living."

Alexis de Tocqueville, The Recollections of Alexis de Tocqueville 

My conclusion about France, is that democracy doesn't work for them, and the only periods in their history where they have been making progress is during Monarchy or other forms of oligarchism (such as during the Napoleon and De Gaulle periods).

Hollande Must Betray His Supporters to Save Them — Entrepreneurs in France Flee From Hollande’s Rejection of Wealth

This is a follow-up on the post I wrote on the 7th of May: Holland Elected the First President to Never Have Held A Real Elected Position Previously While Sarkozy Becomes First French President in 30 Years to Be Ousted

After all the non-sense I read in French newspapers — remember, France is close to be communist country as possible, and even Sarkozy qualifies as a far-left candidate in the whole range of political ideas, even though he considers himself to be in the right wing, he's in the right wing of the far left — here are quotes from a couple of sensible reports, courtesy of Bloomberg.

(Bloomberg) May 9, 2012 — French voters are deluding themselves if they think the man they just elected president offers a viable alternative to the departing Nicolas Sarkozy. 

Francois Hollande’s socialist program is inoperable. Let’s hope he understands that. If he doesn’t already, he soon will. 

Hollande’s campaign was a throwback to Francois Mitterrand’s failed socialist experiment of the early 1980s. The new president doesn’t oppose Europe’s fiscal pact because it needlessly imposes too much austerity too soon -- which is true. He opposes the very idea of structural reform. In France the government already spends 56 percent of gross domestic product. Hollande now promises, among other things, to hire tens of thousands of extra civil servants and roll back Sarkozy’s increase in the retirement age from 60 to 62. 

He can’t think of a public spending program he doesn’t like. His rhetoric is stridently anti-capitalist. And he proposes to pay for this further expansion of government with higher taxes -- including a new top income tax rate of 75 percent. 

France isn’t starting from a position of fiscal or financial strength. Capital markets were already nervous about its prospects. They will stamp on any conscientious attempt by Hollande to keep his crazy promises -- and if that happens, the wider crisis in the euro area will flare again. The question isn’t whether the crowds in Paris celebrating the return of good old-fashioned socialism will get what they want -- they won’t. The question is whether Hollande will row back from his campaign pledges quickly enough to avert disaster. 

The mood of jubilation among France’s unreconstructed leftists will make it difficult. And Hollande doesn’t have much time. Mitterrand took from 1981 to 1983 to discover that his policies constituted the alternative that Margaret Thatcher had in mind when she said, “There is no alternative.” Hollande may have just days to come to the same revelation. Looming parliamentary elections complicate the tactical judgment. Hollande needs voters to give him the majority in next month’s vote for the legislature. He can’t betray his supporters before then. 

Whether it’s sooner or later, Hollande will be forced to acknowledge reality, and the disillusionment of the French left will be terrible. 

[...] Wisely, Hollande’s campaign was more about posture than specifics. We know he’s against austerity and for taxing the rich -- but he hasn’t drawn up a budget. That must wait, he says, until auditors have checked the government’s books. This could give the new president cover to rethink his position on longer-term fiscal control and structural reform. If he does that and insists on short-term fiscal moderation, whether this is deemed a renegotiation of the fiscal pact or merely a supplement to it, his election might help Europe.
But Hollande can’t be a good thing without letting his supporters down. That’s a hard truth to contemplate in your first week in office. 

And, the following one. I couldn't agree more with Jeremie Le Febvre.

Jeremie Le Febvre, the 30-year-old founder of private equity marketing-services firm TBG Capital Advisors, plans to move to Singapore from Paris this year. 

Not because of President-elect Francois Hollande’s pledge to boost taxes; rather for what Hollande’s victory says about how wealth is viewed in France, the entrepreneur said. 

“What’s really driving my departure is the fact that I don’t share the values that emerged during the election, the rejection of ambition and success,” he said in an interview. “It’s part of France’s difficult relationship with money, but it has reached a new level. Even if it’s utopian, I need to believe for me and my descendents that the sky is the limit.” 

France, the fifth-richest country and home to some of world’s wealthiest, including LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA Chief Executive Officer Bernard Arnault, doesn’t celebrate its affluent. Hollande, a Socialist who once said “I don’t like the rich,” and who plans to slap a 75 percent tax on income of more than 1 million euros ($1.29 million), reinforces the sentiment that in France to be rich is not glorious. 

“Hollande is using the 75 percent tax as a symbol to convey certain values through stigmatization,” Le Febvre said. 

Hollande’s rhetoric against wealth and finance is prompting some in France to consider leaving, and European rivals are welcoming them. “Bienvenue a Londres,” or welcome to London, Mayor Boris Johnson quipped in January. Switzerland and Belgium have been just as warm. 

Julien Berckmans, a real estate agent at Brussels-based Best Home Consult, took five calls from French citizens seeking to buy property in the Belgian capital after Hollande defeated President Nicolas Sarkozy on May 6. 

“They had come and visited houses in the previous weeks, telling us their decision depended on the outcome of the presidential election,” Berckmans said. “They called on the morning after to say they were serious about moving.” 

Berckmans said there’s been a steady flow of house hunters in areas such as Ixelles and Uccle -- near the French school. 

Abdallah Chatila, a Geneva-based realtor who specializes in properties worth more than 3 million euros, said he received several enquiries from lawyers on behalf of French clients. 

“It’s difficult to determine, but we’ll know in the next three months how many are willing to confirm,” he said. 

Hollande’s millionaire tax announcement during this year’s election campaign triggered a 30 percent spike in searches from France for prime properties in wealthy London neighborhoods such as South Kensington and Chelsea, according to real estate agent Knight Frank LLP.

“Seen from abroad, France is the last country where an entrepreneur wants to go,” Marc Simoncini, the founder of French dating site Meetic.com, said in an interview on BFM TV yesterday. “I don’t know of any British person who’s come to set up a business in France. But I know plenty of young French people who’ve gone to London to do that.” 

The attacks on the moneyed class intensified during the presidential race, leaving entrepreneurs and other wealth creators feeling like pariahs, said Michel Collet, a tax lawyer at Paris-based law firm CMS Bureau Francis Lefebvre. 

“The rich are fed up with being stigmatized,” he said. “Beyond the expectation of higher taxes, another important reason why our clients say they want to move abroad is that the negative perception of wealth has mounted in the past weeks.” 

The attitude toward business and wealth creators is driving people away, said Diane Segalen, founder of Segalen & Associes, an executive search firm specializing in top management and board members. 

“It’s not only for people who don’t want to be taxed 75 percent, but people who want to be in a country where they think they can do business,” she said. “They want to be in a country where there’s stability in taxes and labor laws, and where they aren’t at risk when they try to set up a business.” 

Talent and skills will go where they are welcome, she said. 

[...] Collet said he noticed increasing expatriation-related queries about a year ago, when Sarkozy started increasing taxes and ended a concession that capped all taxes at 50 percent of income. The so-called tax shield had been one of Sarkozy’s first measures after being elected president in 2007. 

About 1.6 million French citizens were registered in French consulates abroad as of Dec. 31, a 6 percent increase from 2010, beating both the 2.3 percent rise the previous year and the 3 percent average annual increase in the French population living overseas, according to the Ministry of International Affairs. 

The U.K. had an 8.5 percent jump, while Switzerland and Belgium recorded 7.3 percent and 8.1 percent respectively. The surge is partly explained by the 2012 vote, which generally boosts registrations, the ministry said. 

Still, although most of the people aren’t tax exiles, for those fleeing stifling fiscal rules, the decision to move is disruptive and not taken lightly, Collet said. The destination depends on what phase of their lives they are in, he said.
[...] 
Hollande’s millionaire levy would hit between 10,000 and 20,000 households, according to estimates by the tax-collectors’ union, SNUI. It needs to be approved by France’s constitutional council, which may find it confiscatory, according to Collet.
Meetic founder Simoncini, who, with 16 other high earners, signed a letter vowing to pay more taxes, was among the few people in France to openly criticize Hollande’s plan.
“I don’t approve of this measure,” Simoncini wrote in a column published by weekly magazine Nouvel Observateur on March 5. “It would affect only a few dozen chief executive officers with unusual compensation while sending a calamitous signal to the world. How could we possibly attract people to set up businesses, create, invest and succeed in a country that would be in effect the most taxed in the world?” 

Simoncini wrote that his wealth tax would amount to 100 times his current salary because most of his fortune is invested in small businesses that don’t yet generate income for him.
On the other side of the Channel, Conservative London Mayor Johnson laid out the welcome carpet. 

“This is the global capital of finance,” he said. “It’s on your doorstep and if your own president does not want the jobs, the opportunities and the economic growth that you generate, we do.” 

Holland Elected the First President to Never Have Held A Real Elected Position Previously While Sarkozy Becomes First French President in 30 Years to Be Ousted

The French had a choice:

• pick the left wing and quite incompetent Sarkozy but unfortunately also super liar, for a second term.
• elect the super left wing, and super incompetent, yet not quite as big a liar, François Hollande for his first ever elected mandate, straight as President of the country. 

They decided to oust the arrogant incompetent liar, and quite honestly, if I had voted, that's what I would have done: Hollande was mostly elected as the result of Sarkozy being quite frankly, hated by most.

What most people — inside, and outside of France — don't realize, is that in France, there is basically no real debate in terms of political ideas. All of the main players are stuck in the left wing, including those who are supposedly in the right: they are on the right wing of the left.

Blooomberg seems to agree with me:

May 6 (Bloomberg) -- Francois Hollande defeated French President Nicolas Sarkozy as voters handed control of the second-biggest European economy to the Socialists for the first time in 17 years. 

The 57-year-old Hollande got about 52 percent against about 48 percent for Sarkozy, according to estimates by four pollsters. The campaign isn’t over. France elects its lower house of parliament in five weeks, prompting calls from backers of both candidates to keep fighting. 

The challenger inherits an economy that is barely growing, with jobless claims at their highest in 12 years and a rising debt load that makes France vulnerable to the financial crisis that has rocked the euro region the past two years. Sarkozy became the ninth euro leader to fall in that time and the first French president in 30 years to fail to win re-election.

“Hollande’s bet was that rejection of Nicolas Sarkozy was enough to get him elected,” Dominique Reynie, senior researcher at Paris’s Institute of Political Studies, said before the vote. “The message was that if you don’t like Sarkozy then I’m your best bet.”

Here's another Bloomberg report quote:

Nicolas Sarkozy’s defeat in the French presidential election makes him the first incumbent in more than 30 years to fail to win re-election, and the ninth European leader to be booted out since the region’s debt crisis began. 

Sanctioned for his flamboyant personal style and slowing economic growth, Sarkozy lost to Socialist Francois Hollande, who got about 52 percent of the vote against 48 percent, polling estimates showed. Sarkozy is the second French president to lose a re-election bid since World War II after former President Valery Giscard d’Estaing was vanquished in 1981.
[...]
At the start of his term, Sarkozy, an outsider with immigrant roots, was France’s most popular leader since General Charles de Gaulle, World War II hero and founder of the Fifth Republic. By the time he announced his re-election bid in February, he was the most unpopular incumbent French president since the war and was counting on his stewardship of the debt crisis to deliver a second term. 

The dislike of Sarkozy began well before the financial crisis hit France. His approval rating fell to 32 percent by May 2008, a year after his election, from 65 percent a month after his election, pollster TNS Sofres said.
[...]
Sarkozy’s unpopularity began the night of his 2007 victory, which he celebrated at Fouquet’s, a fancy restaurant on Paris’s Avenue des Champs Elysees, with about a dozen chief executive officers. 

He then went off the coast of Malta on the yacht belonging to one of them, Vincent Bollore.
Next came a public divorce with his wife Cecilia - the first ever by a sitting president - and an even more public courtship with singer-model Carla Bruni, his third wife, including a well-publicized visit to Euro Disney. 

He used a presidential press conference Jan. 8, 2008 to announce that his affair with Bruni was “serious.” They were married Feb. 2, 2008 at the Elysee presidential palace. 

On Feb. 23, 2008 he was caught on video at an agricultural fair using a vulgar expression against a man who refused to shake his hand.
[...]

Finally, Bloomberg, on Hollande's career:

Hollande, nicknamed after a pudding, has spent his career behind the scenes negotiating compromises. He has never held a government post. Hollande, 57, has represented the central town of Correze for 24 years in parliament and was the Socialist Party chief for 11 years until 2008. 

What' interesting, is that Sarkozy was elected on a campaign based on bringing in a "breach" with the previous policy makers. Obama was elected on "change we can believe in", and before them, hundreds of liars and incompetents were elected while promising change. Now, it's Hollande's turn. He promised change. Is he a fool big enough, to actually implement the mad ideas he promised? Or, will he, like Obama, Sarkozy, and most politicians before them, become part of the establishment, and keep the status quo? I'll bet on the latter.

Looking at the bright side, I think it's not a bad choice: at least, with the super incompetent guy in power now, we can hope that the kicking of the can will stop, and that the collapse of the leech-state of France — sucking dry the blood of 10-20% of the population to buy the votes of the remaining 80% — will accelerate, and that a new beginning will happen sooner. France in the same path as Greece, just a few years behind, and hopefully Hollande will help bridge that gap.

All You Need to Know from the French Presidential Elections in One Picture

The title of this magazine reveals the current social mood in France: "The Presidential campaign has revealed the hatred of the rich".

Three years into the (non-)recovery, and with one of the biggest real estate bubble of Europe (Spain, Ireland, etc. have already popped), it's funny to see that far left ideas still prevail, while people are supposed to be feeling rich with their million euro 2 bed apartments...

To be perfectly honest, this is not new, France has been a far left country since the French revolution in in 1789 and things have never really changed since then.

The Rise of the Fascist European Union — part 2

This is a follow up from the post I titled The Rise of the Fascist European Union published just a few days ago.

Here are two more blow to democracy, but those who are supposedly trying to save it by destroying it.

Via Mish: Sarkozy refuses to agree to referendum on EU fiscal treaty.

Mr Sarkozy, who is trailing the socialist François Hollande in opinion polls seven weeks before the presidential election, came under pressure to promise a referendum on the pact after he pledged to consult the people directly on significant issues if re-elected.

“No,” he replied when asked on French radio yesterday if he would put the treaty to a public ballot. “If you’re dealing with a treaty with 200 articles, 250 articles, I can’t see how you’d formulate a clear question.”

And Merkel along with parliamentary complicity and in complete opposition of the people's opinion, pushed for the Greek bailout:

Feb. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Chancellor Angela Merkel won a parliamentary vote on Greek aid after warning German lawmakers that pushing Greece out of the euro would risk “incalculable” damage, defying a public backlash against more bailout funds. 

In a ballot that showed dissent in her coalition growing, 496 members of the lower house, or Bundestag, backed the 130 billion-euro ($174 billion) package yesterday in Berlin; 90 voted against and five abstained. While questions on Greece’s remaining in the euro “have their justification,” Merkel warned that a failure of the euro might endanger the European Union and the global economy. 

“Angela Merkel’s strident insistence that bailing out Greece is vastly preferable to the alternative was important,” Kit Juckes, head of foreign-exchange research at Societe Generale SA, said in a note today as he forecast the euro rising to $1.50. “Europe’s leaders have always stepped back from the edge of the abyss after flirting with disaster.”

Of course, the bankers being bailed out are supportive of these fascistic behaviours and ideas.

French Idée du Jour — The 75% Tax Bracket

François Hollande, the front runner for France's presidential elections, has started the class warfare, aiming again at the minority (let's call them, the rich), in order to buy some more votes from the majority of the population (those who are not rich).

He wants to raise income tax rates, and introduce a 75% tax rate for income above 1 million euros.

(Bloomberg) Feb. 29 -- [...] His latest proposal to tax the rich has come under fire. Top earners should pay 75 percent of their income above 1 million euros ($1.34 million) a year in taxes, he said Feb. 27. That’s on top of his proposal to raise the tax rate for people making 150,000 euros or more to 45 percent from 40 percent. 

The most recent tax measure, that Hollande called “a matter of patriotism,” had sparked a debate in France with Sarkozy’s ruling Union for a Popular Movement Party and centrist parties saying it will lead to capital flight.

This is an amazing act of stupidity, as it's been proven time and time again, that beyond a certain level (around 45-50%) increasing the tax rate actually reduces the amount of dollars (or euros, or whatever the currency) levied by the tax. The main reason is that people are not interested in making that income which will be taken away by force, and would prefer to either work less, or make that income go underground.

In addition to that, you create capital flight, and the expatriation of those who are actually producing and spending the most: those bloody bourgeois.