Paris (AFP)

Lower taxes or fuel check?

The government will announce "by the end of the week" a "simple, fair and effective" device to help the French face rising fuel prices, its spokesperson Gabriel Attal said on Tuesday.

"The last arbitrations are underway. What matters for us is to make a decision and to have a measure which is simple, which is fair, and which is effective", underlined Mr. Attal on RTL about of these "protective measures" the budget of consumers affected by rising prices at the pump.

"It's a matter of days," he added, referring to a decision "by the end of the week".

"All avenues are on the table," he also said, referring to "the question of taxes" and that of "a check, specific help for people who use their car and who suffer this increase. "which" is likely to last several months ".

"The ideal is to have direct help targeted to the people who need it," said the spokesperson.

But he said "also hear" the French who say they are "always above the thresholds" and ultimately cannot benefit from direct aid.

In an attempt to appease the beginning of a rebellion in the face of soaring fuel prices in the wake of a rise in world prices, the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire and the Minister of Energy Transition Barbara Pompili spoke on Monday of the track of a fuel check.

But its implementation is complex: it must be able "to arrive as quickly as possible to the French" who need it, underlined Mr. Le Maire, and the government does not have "a database of people who have they need their car to go to work, ”explained Ms. Pompili.

In the opposition, the track of a check targeting the most vulnerable categories is defended by EELV which pleads for a redistribution of a supposed "tax pot" generated by the rise in prices, according to its boss Julien Bayou.

The EELV presidential candidate Yannick Jadot thus offered energy checks of 400 euros for the most modest households and 100 euros for the middle classes.

LFI candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon also refuses a reduction in taxes, which "would impoverish the state", preferring to "freeze prices" while taxing the profits of oil groups.

"If you lower taxes, you will pay in taxes what you save at the pump," he argued on BFMTV and RMC on Tuesday.

On the contrary, the PS candidate Anne Hidalgo judges that a "temporary" drop in VAT, "the most unfair tax", to 5.5% against 20% currently, would be the "most effective" measure, Tuesday on LCI .

On the right, the candidate for the nomination of LR Valérie Pécresse is in favor of an increase in the ceiling of the kilometer package paid by the employer.

For the head of deputies LR Damien Abad, the government's policy "is a snub to France of territories, work and the middle classes".

"We are proposing a reduction in taxation to minus 10 cents," he added to the press.

It is also for the candidate of RN Marine Le Pen the "bad method": she pleads for "lowering the VAT" from 20 to 5.5%, she repeated Tuesday on France 2.

Olivier Becht, boss of the Agir group in the Assembly, ally of the majority, supports him "a floating TICPE".

He believes that "the fuel check is complicated to implement" and is "wary of gas factories which risk missing their target".

© 2021 AFP