pensions

Shelved his ambition for a complete overhaul of the pension system, which had aroused strong opposition, Emmanuel Macron converted to a more "parametric" reform: gradually raising the retirement age to 65, with the abolition special diets.

It provides for adjustments for long careers and difficult jobs and promises to increase the minimum full-rate pension to 1,100 euros per month.

Faced with the outcry aroused by this proposal, he said he was ready on Monday to "open the door" to a postponement of the starting age rather to 64 years.

Conversely, Marine Le Pen wants to reduce the starting age to 60 for French people who started working before the age of 20.

Those who entered working life between the ages of 20 and 24.5 could leave between the ages of 60.75 and 62.

The system would be unchanged for the others.

The candidate also plans to reindex pensions on inflation and raise the minimum old age to 1,000 euros.

Household taxes

Reduction to 5.5% of VAT on energy products, exemption from income tax for those under 30, etc.

Marine Le Pen plans nearly 19 billion euros in tax cuts for households over a five-year period, against 7 billion euros for Emmanuel Macron, notably via the abolition of the audiovisual license fee.

The two candidates also want to reduce the taxation of gifts and inheritances.

Emmanuel Macron proposes to exempt inheritance rights up to 150,000 euros per child (compared to 100,000 today), and 100,000 euros for other family members, while Marine Le Pen wants to exempt donations up to 100,000 euros from tax. per child every ten years.

Finally, Marine Le Pen wants to create a tax on financial wealth in order, she says, to tax "speculation".

Work, wages, benefits

The conditioning of the RSA to 15 or 20 hours of integration activity is one of the most discussed measures of the program of the president-candidate among those supposed to reward work.

He also wants to triple the ceiling of the bonus without social charges or tax that companies can pay to their employees, oblige companies that pay dividends to share their profits with their employees, or even promote the accumulation of employment and retirement.

Emmanuel Macron also intends to go further on the reform of unemployment insurance to make it "stricter" when too many jobs are unfilled and "more generous" when unemployment is high.

Finally, to limit the non-use of aid, it defends the payment of benefits "at source" to all those who are entitled to them.

For her part, Marine Le Pen wants to encourage companies to increase wages, by exempting from contributions those who increase their employees by 10% earning the equivalent of less than three Smic.

In its program aimed at fighting against immigration, it wishes to reserve social aid for the French and make solidarity benefits subject to 5 years of work.

Companies

Marine Le Pen wants to apply a program in favor of VSEs and SMEs, for example by lowering their production taxes, removing taxes on business transfers and giving them priority for public contracts.

In her desire to defend "economic patriotism", she wants to launch "a large national loan remunerated at 2%" to finance investments, review free trade agreements which do not respect the interests of France, withdraw agriculture free trade agreements.

Finally, it wants to renationalise the motorway companies.

Emmanuel Macron intends to continue reducing production taxes, via the abolition of the CVAE (contribution on the added value of companies), lowering the charges for the self-employed in order to increase their income by 550 euros per year for those who earn equivalent of the minimum wage.

Finally, it is counting on the France 2030 investment plan, already announced last fall, to stimulate investment in future projects.

© 2022 AFP