Every morning, Nicolas Beytout analyzes political news and gives us his opinion.
This Wednesday, he is interested in the draft budget for 2021 that the government must announce next Monday.
The left is offended by the lack of compensation requested by the state in the aid distributed to companies.
She demands that those who receive a state guarantee guarantee employment in return.
The government is putting the finishing touches to its draft budget for 2021 these days. It has even decided to bring forward the presentation by a few days.
It will be done next Monday, so we are in the final settings.
What is surprising is that, for once, this draft Finance Law arouses almost no opposition.
The Covid has devastated the economy so much that pouring tens of billions of euros on companies seems obvious and arouses little reluctance.
Except on the absence of counterparts requested by the State.
It is true.
The left is engulfed in this breach, accompanied by all the unions.
Their reasoning is simple: since we pay money to companies, they must in return commit to what they will do with it.
So there are the main principles.
For example, when Bruno Le Maire pushes aid towards a greener and more digital economy, that remains a fairly general level of requirement.
It is something else when it comes to measurable compensation, for example on employment.
Yes, this is the most frequent request: a company which receives a state guarantee must in turn guarantee employment.
That's it.
It's a very French thing, that.
As soon as a company receives an advantage, for example a tax cut or even a loan, we hear that it is a gift in cash, which it must repay in kind, in jobs.
We had this debate throughout the second half of the Hollande quinquennium, around the CICE, forgetting of course that this tax credit was just a way to soften a historic tax hype.
It is a debate that the employers of the time had missed: they should have explained that the government did not give them money, but that they finally took a little less.
Shade…
Except that today, it is the State that gives aid or offers guarantees.
It is true, but it is aimed at bloodless companies.
And the supreme interest of the country is to save as much as possible, not to set up a bureaucracy, with a battery of indicators and a gas plant to make any auditor blush with pleasure.
If there's one thing business leaders don't need right now, it's that kind of paperwork.
In any case, for the moment, the government is not giving in.
No, he's holding on.
In fact, it is a further test of the strength of his political line.
Emmanuel Macron stood up to those who wanted to increase the taxes of the wealthy at the time of confinement;
he held on when it came to lowering production taxes, those stupid levies that a company must pay before having made a euro in turnover.
Here he is faced with the matter of counterparts to aid.
He has to hold on…
Even in the Bridgestone case?
There, it's simple: if that happens, in the future, companies on the brink of collapse will pull the ladder faster, in order to keep enough to repay.
The reverse of what is wanted.