He wants half of French people to earn more than 4,000 euros per month: he is not a candidate, but Bruno Le Maire unveils a program to achieve this

Without officially being a presidential candidate, Bruno Le Maire unveiled the start of his program this Thursday in front of a handful of parliamentarians and supporters gathered in Paris. Based on the principle that "the model on which we live is dead", the former Minister of the Economy puts forward three priorities: "the restoration of a powerful State", "growth" and "a Europe which finds its place". Concretely, on the economic level, Bruno Le Maire sets high objectives: "2% growth, 5% unemployment, a median net salary which must be doubled to 4.

000 euros per month". At this stage, France's growth potential is around 1.1% per year, the unemployment rate is at 8.2%. And, adjusted for inflation, the median net salary has only increased by 4% in ten years (25% in current euros), to stand at 2.

238 euros in 2025, according to INSEE figures. So we are far from it. Bruno Le Maire, who has spent seven of the last 10 years at the head of the Ministry of the Economy, recognizes a form of responsibility but defends his record.

“We wanted to improve a model, when we should have changed it. We have also had successes. It is no small thing to have reduced the unemployment rate to a little more than 7%,” he defended himself during the presentation of his project.

VAT increase of 3 points To recover the economy, Bruno Le Maire is firstly banking on an increase in the employment rate by reducing the maximum duration of unemployment compensation for those under 55 to 12 months and by developing apprenticeships. Its team also proposes better targeting of savings towards businesses, and in particular towards SMEs, through the creation of a new savings product. Gains in purchasing power of employees would be made possible in particular by a reduction in charges and taxes.

“Reduce the role of the welfare state to protect those who really need it in order to lower the charges that bosses have to pay and you will have better salaries,” launched the former minister. To finance these new reductions in charges, but without increasing debt, Bruno Le Maire is banking on a vast reform of social protection, in particular via the postponement of the legal retirement age to 65 and the deindexation of certain pensions, according to Le Monde which had access to all of his proposals. An extension of its financing is also planned.

“Let us finally embark on the major transformation which is that of financing our social protection. Who pays? Those who work, they pay for everything!

This is untenable. Our proposal is a three-point increase in VAT, a tripling of the tax on digital giants who make maximum profit from the 67 million French people" and an increase in customs tariffs for certain imports. End of life-long employment in the civil service The former minister also plans a vast reform of the institutions and the status of civil servants.

“If we have a problem with the complexity of the decision, then at the end of the reasoning, let’s remove the departments, merge them with the regions,” he said, adding that he wanted to give “fiscal and normative autonomy to communities” to refocus the role of the State. “Let’s put an end to lifelong employment in the public service, to reserve it only for essential government jobs at the heart of state activity. Surprise yourself that in France, any manager of public gardens is hired for life, but that 75% of our soldiers are hired on short 5-year contracts,” he continued.

As he had already indicated, Bruno Le Maire is considering a federal leap to the European level, but on the scale of only six countries. "Europe of 27 is a failure; it's a big market, it's very good. I propose that we create a federation of nation-states of six: France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Poland and the Netherlands.

Machine-translated from French