By Ian Sparks
- Now 60,000 French businessmen abroad employing around 16 people each
- Think-tank Concorde found 3% of two million French expats own companies
- Tax exiles include Gerard Depardieu, Jean-Michel Jarre and Bernard Arnault
France's repressive tax regime has sent
entrepreneurs fleeing abroad and lost the country up to a million jobs, a
damning new report has revealed.
Tax hikes and employment regulations imposed by left
and right wing governments over 20 years meant there were now 60,000 French
businessmen abroad employing around 16 people each.
The figures were released amid a flood of wealthy
French quitting France this year to avoid a looming socialist tax of 75 per
cent on all earnings over one million euros - about £850,000.
Film star Gerard Depardieu, the Mulliez family who
own the Auchan supermarket chain, electronic music icon Jean-Michel Jarre and
France's richest man Bernard Arnault have all quit France in the past six
months.
Now research by the think-tank Concorde has found
that three percent of the two million French living abroad now own companies
and if they had not left there would one million more people in work in France.
And their report published in French daily Le Figaro
describes even that figure as a 'conservative estimate'.
It added that the number of French going into tax
exile had accelerated dramatically in the past year, and sales of properties
worth more than one million pounds had also shot up.
France's economy minister Pierre Moscovici has
reacted angrily to claims rich French are leaving the country, telling a
conference of business leaders in Paris: 'I am troubled to read in the papers
that the exile has begun, and that companies are fleeing.
'I also lament attacks on the government's economic
policies that are in vogue in France and abroad. Le French-bashing is
terrible.'
His comments also came after Laurence Parisot - head
of MEDEF, the French equivalent of the UK's Confederation of British Industry -
warned that left-wing economic policies risked turning France into 'the poor
man of Europe'.
She said: 'Large foreign investors are shunning
France altogether. It's becoming really dramatic.
'Ten years ago, Germany was the
poor man of Europe and if we don't act now, that title will soon be ours.'
Paris estate agents said in September that France's
luxury property market had hit a 'selling panic' as the super-rich rushed to
flee new higher taxes.
Estate agent Daniel Feau said: 'It's nearly a
general panic. Some 400 to 500 residences worth more than one million euros
have come onto the Paris market since May.'
And British estate agent Sotherby's said its French
offices sold more than 100 properties over 1.7 million euros between April and
June this year - a marked increase on the same period in 2011.
Another report earlier this year by British estate agent
Knight Frank said the tax plans had sent French interest in luxury London homes
rocketing.
Inquiries from wealthy French for London homes worth
more than five million pounds soared by 30 per cent in the first three months
of this year, the statistics showed.
Prime minister David Cameron angered the French in
June when he told the B20 business summit in Mexico: 'If the French go ahead
with a 75 per cent top rate of tax we will roll out the red carpet and welcome
more French businesses to Britain.
'And they can pay tax in Britain and pay for our
health service and schools and everything else.'
The comments left one French politician so offended
he suggested Mr Cameron must have been 'drunk' when he made them.
Gallic MP Claude Bartolone, a staunch ally of
President Hollande, said: 'I hope that it was an after-dinner remark and that
he didn't have all his wits about him when he said these things.'
France's European Affairs Minister Bernard Cazeneuve
insisted there was no 'exodus', adding: 'What I can answer to this statement
from the British prime minister is that French bosses are patriots.'
'There is a range of measures we will take in favour
of business, measures that will support investment and encourage business to
stay in France.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2298936/France-lost-million-jobs-repressive-tax-regime-report-claims.html#ixzz2OjkvOGL9
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