French Presidential Elections: Inequality guru sees ‘French Roosevelt’ in candidate Hollande - by Geert de Clercq

 

Francois Hollande

French economist Thomas Piketty has long fed global debate about income inequality and called for supertaxes on the rich. Now he has the ear of French presidential challenger Francois Hollande, who plans to apply his advice if elected. 

Hollande, a Socialist running strongly against President Nicolas Sarkozy, has made waves in France and beyond with a plan to tax all income over E1 million (R10.3m) a year at 75 percent.

His proposal comes in an international context of protests against a rising wealth gap in Western countries by the “occupy” and “indignados” movements, a US election campaign focused on taxation and the debt crisis besetting euro zone governments. 

Frontrunner in polls ahead of Sunday’s first round of voting, Hollande is the first mainstream politician in a big industrial country to propose such drastic tax hikes for the rich. 

The 40-year-old Piketty, seeing a welcome historical parallel with the US response to the Great Depression of the 1930s, said Hollande might be “the next Roosevelt”.

For more: Inequality guru sees ‘French Roosevelt’ in candidate Hollande - Business News | IOL Business | IOL.co.za