“We must move towards much more radical solutions”, says Bruno Le Maire about salary increases

This text corresponds to part of the transcription of the interview above. Click on the video to watch it in full. Francis Letellier: the minimum wage will increase on December 1st after a boost and will pass the 1,500 euros net mark.

Was it time to increase the minimum wage? Bruno Le Maire: Yes, it's a good decision, but ultimately it won't solve the problem of the millions of employees who are either in a low-wage trap or do not see their wages increase. I am thinking of all the middle classes who today see their purchasing power decline year after year.

So I think we need to move towards much more radical solutions. That is to say that all salaries should generally be increased? It is better to have a long-term strategy which, for me, must be based on three absolutely essential pillars.

The first is full employment. We forget it, but when you have a 5% unemployment rate, you strengthen the negotiating capacity of employees for salary increases. It can't be decreed?

It cannot be decreed, but when I was Minister of the Economy, we reduced the unemployment rate to almost 7%. It is in the process of rising again, because we abandoned the supply-side policy, the economic policy that we pursued for seven years, which produced results. We forget it too often, but the first response to increasing wages is to increase employees' ability to negotiate with full employment.

In the meantime, is it possible, is it even useful and urgent to increase wages? Of course, but to increase wages, companies must be able to do so. So the first thing to do, after aiming for full employment which must be our great ambition for the next ten years, is to change the financing of social protection.

Today, who pays? Those who work. These are social security contributions, these are the charges that weigh on businesses.

I propose that we switch the financing of social protection of work towards three other sources of financing. An increase in VAT of 3%. So drop in consumption?

No, because basic necessities would not be affected. So VAT, three points. The increase in taxation of digital giants.

We are at a time when artificial intelligence will develop, where the American digital giants that I have taxed are making absolutely considerable profits. I propose that we triple the taxation of digital giants. And the third response is to tax carbon imports.

This makes it possible in particular to tax Chinese imports. The total of this change in financing of social protection is 50 billion euros. That means 200 euros per month more for employees with the median salary.

So there are also those left behind, these are the civil servants whose salaries, the index as they say, have been frozen for years. When you were Minister of the Economy, you also froze civil servants' indices. Should we also help them?

Of course, civil servants must also be entitled to their share of growth, but you will not be able to do this if you are not able to reduce the recruitment of the number of civil servants. I prefer to have fewer civil servants, better paid, with a much more flexible status. I propose that we return to the cardinal principle, which no one wants to touch, of lifetime employment in the public service.

What does this lead to? This leads to a maximum number of civil servants who have pay levels that are too low and no career development possible. We hear in your proposals certain avenues which are in 50 proposals that you are going to propose today, after having already published a manifesto for France.

Is this a presidential program? It is a project for the country. I don't want to resign myself to having employees today who are not getting by, companies who have such high workload levels.

One of the objectives that I set in this project is to have a median net salary doubled, from 2,000 to 4,000 euros. It is a project for the country. You see candidates growing like mushrooms every morning.

There's a new one every morning and there's no plan. I am taking a different path which is that of experience, which is that of the project, which is that of the vision of the country. Have you given up on being a presidential candidate?

The man who is speaking to you this morning is not a candidate for the presidential election. We'll see tomorrow. We will see how the project I am carrying out will be received.

I insist a lot on this salary question which is the big social question today which can bring the French together. But let's do things in order: the project before the candidate. So if no one takes up your ideas, then you can launch the presidential campaign?

I will defend them first. We will see what fate will be reserved for them by one and the other. Is this a condition for you to support such and such?

The objective is not to support this or that, it is to support this project. We can clearly see that for the first time since 1958, the French are stuck between the choice of two extremes. We tell them: “It’s the National Rally or it’s France Insoumise.

And besides, vote for National Rally in the first round, otherwise you will have rebellious France. “We are not going to choose out of fear. I want us to choose out of desire, to choose out of hope.

This is the purpose of this project. Click on the video to watch the interview in full.

Machine-translated from French