French President Francois Hollande was Sunday due to announce unprecedented belt-tightening measures of billions of euros amid mounting discontent over the flagging economy and job cuts. Hollande, whose popularity ratings have slid less than four months after he took power, is looking vulnerable as he prepares to push through a deficit-cutting budget and face down union anger over mounting layoffs.
The Journal du Dimanche weekly warned Sunday that Hollande - who famously said he does not "like the rich" and proposed a stinging 75-percent tax on income exceeding one million euros ($1.28 million), would announce "unprecedented" austerity. It said the president would late Sunday outline, on the private TF1 television channel, new taxes of between "15 and 20 billion euros" ($19 and 25 billion) as well as austerity measures that would save 10 billion euros. The keenly-awaited discourse comes on the heels of the shock announcement by France's richest man Bernard Arnault, the boss of luxury goods giant LVMH, who declared that he was seeking Belgian citizenship.
That prompted Francois Fillion, the prime minister of former right-wing president Nicolas Sarkozy, to denounce the "stupid decisions" which lead to "terrible results".
But the world's arbiter of good taste has denied that he was seeking to become a tax exile with his company stating his attempt to acquire double nationality did not "change his situation or his determination to create jobs in France". Arnault, who is ranked as the world fourth-richest man by Forbes magazine, had emigrated to the United States in 1981 during the last Socialist presidency.
France's finance minister meanwhile told AFP that the 75-percent tax on the wealthy would not be watered down. "Any other interpretation is unfounded," Pierre Moscovici said on Friday. "Technical modalities are in the process of being worked out. This commitment by the President of the Republic, will be strictly respected" in the 2013 budget.
French dailies Les Echos and Le Figaro recently reported that the government was looking to dilute the campaign pledge by raising the 75-percent tax rate threshold to two million euros for couples and excluding capital gains. A recent IPSOS poll showed the socialist president's approval rating down 11 points in August to 44 percent, the lowest figure since he defeated incumbent Sarkozy in May's presidential vote.
Sarkozy had a 61 percent approval rating in August after his 2007 election. Hit by the eurozone debt crisis, France's economy barely avoided entering a recession in the second quarter. Unemployment continues to rise, with the number of jobseekers seeing its sharpest monthly increase in three years in July, hitting 2.99 million people. But experts said the government had to take some of the blame for the falling poll numbers.
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