"It's our April 1. The hunt for fish, very big fish is open," said Fabien Roussel, perched on a basket, in front of a hundred activists wearing candidate masks and dressed in red jumpsuits, recalling "The casa de Papel", a Spanish series that has become a planetary phenomenon whose heroes, in red jumpsuits and Dali masks, are robbers set up as anti-system rebels.

"Tax evasion, tax evasion, tax optimization with us, it's over," assured the candidate, credited with around 3% of voting intentions.

The activists deposited before the Financial Markets Authority large bags, supposed to be bags of money, stamped "BNP Paribas" and "Societe Generale".

"These heaps of gold, these heaps of banknotes, symbolize the money that the Republic lacks", the "100 billion euros" that France loses each year because of the evasion and tax optimization of richer, said the candidate.

Fabien Roussel, perched on a basket, in front of a hundred activists wearing the candidate's masks and dressed in red jumpsuits, on April 1, 2022 in Paris Thomas SAMSON AFP

"It's your money, it's our money, it's the money of our wealth", he added, and "this money we want to find in social progress, in public services, in our purchasing power", he shouted, shouting "Give us back our money".

With these sums, we could for example “double the budget for National Education” or even introduce “retirement at 60”, he explained.

"I accuse tax evaders of plundering the Republic, (...) I accuse consulting firms of playing the game of tax optimization, (...) I accuse the CAC 40 multinationals of choosing the tax havens to establish their headquarters. I, president, will ask that these companies relocate to France", he declared.

"I accuse this government of complicity in tax optimization. Out of 100 billion in fraud and optimization, it only recovers 10! Either they are incompetent or they are accomplices!", He accused.

In front of the press, he stressed that "all governments today are attacking tax havens with cap guns", "without putting the means into it".

“There is not a single tax evader who finds himself behind prison bars today,” he lamented.

© 2022 AFP