The French Tax Debate

Shocking as it may seem, one of France’s presidential candidates actually is talking about tax cuts. And the current president endorsed a big reduction in the corporate tax rate. No tax cuts have actually been implemented, but perhaps some people in France have finally realized that it is better to reward rather than punish productive behavior.

The Wall Street Journal opines: 

Ms. Royal's foray into these waters came, as much else in recent weeks, awkwardly. Socialist Party chief François Hollande, who is also Ms. Royal's personal partner and the father of their four children, floated a plan to raise taxes on people earning above €4,000 a month. This was quickly panned as a tax hike that soaks the middle classes. Taken by surprise, Ms. Royal tried to distance herself from his proposal, but her campaign was soon put on another back foot when details of their own personal wealth were leaked to the press.

…Mr. Sarkozy has taken advantage. Building on the momentum from his formal nomination by the ruling center-right party last week, and with an emerging lead in the polls, he used a front-page interview in Tuesday's Le Monde to push for cuts in income taxes and — the real whammy in France — social charges. His proposals are modest, but break a taboo in France — something that this son of Hungarian and Jewish immigrants specializes in.

…Mr. Sarkozy isn't a Thatcherite by a long stretch, nor would being one help him in the eyes of French voters. He doesn't dare support revoking the 35-hour workweek; he wants only to relax the law, even though it is widely seen as a failure. When he was briefly finance minister in 2004, he showed an interventionist streak that appeared to betray a lack of true understanding about how a market economy really works.