Purchasing power: for Faure (PS), “the account is not there”

July 9, 2022

“The account is not there”, judged Friday the first secretary of the PS Olivier Faure about the bill on the purchasing power which is, according to him, rather a text of “least loss”.

“We could have had a text for gaining purchasing power, a very text which makes it possible to preserve purchasing power, and there we have a text which makes it possible to limit the decline in purchasing power”, estimated Olivier Faure on France 2.

The government presented Thursday in two texts (a draft amending budget and a purchasing power law) a burst of aid, amounting to “twenty billion euros” according to the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire.

Among the main measures are the early revaluations of 4% of retirement pensions and social benefits, the 3.5% increase in the salary of public officials or a food check of 100 euros, to which it will be necessary to add 50 euros per child.

“If you tell me, do you want nothing or a little more than nothing, I will tell you a little more than nothing, but the reality is that 20 billion are on the table, and the State thanks to the “Inflation has just recovered 57 billion more. So the account is not there,” he added.

He was referring to the 57 billion in additional tax revenue linked to inflation (increase in contributions and VAT, for example) announced by Bercy on June 28, compared to its initial forecasts.

“Is it a protective text? No, it’s a least-loss text, which is better than nothing, but it’s still not enough,” replied Olivier Faure. “We can’t be below the level of inflation,” he said.

Asked about this point, Bruno Le Maire had pleaded Thursday that the announced increases in social benefits and the salary of civil servants were added to others decided in January.

While the government wants to encourage companies to share their profits, Olivier Faure criticized the approach: “That’s not the goal of the game. The state does not beg”.

“The state says there are rules of the game, and when there are people who even profit from the crisis, who earn a lot of money, it is normal that it is first of all them who return a part of this they won,” he insisted.

The first secretary assured that all PS deputies would vote on Monday for the motion of censure tabled by the left alliance Nupes: “we are in opposition to a government which has not demonstrated its willingness to compromise” .

Elisabeth Borne “did not herself outline the slightest compromise, nor say what she was ready to give up”, added the boss of the PS group Boris Vallaud in the daily 20 minutes.

He affirmed that his group was “united, because we are at the same time in a rally of the left, but that we are there as socialists. And no one asked us not to be anymore”, a- he added.