The left has just lost its last hope of making the government bend over the taxation of superprofits. On Tuesday, October 25, the Constitutional Council ruled that its shared initiative referendum (RIP) did not fulfill “not the constitutional and organic conditions” to be implemented. On September 21, the New Popular Ecological and Social Union (Nupes) presented a bill, signed by 240 parliamentarians from the Senate and the National Assembly, aimed at establishing for a given period a surcharge on large companies which would have benefited economic events, such as the war in Ukraine, which caused an increase in energy prices; the Covid-19 pandemic, which prompted the State to inject billions of euros of cash into the economy; or inflation. The Constitutional Council was a first step. A citizen consultation was to follow, with the idea of collecting at least 4.7 million supporters, a necessary condition to hope for a possible referendum.
“We will continue to fight”, said the national secretary of the Socialist Party, Olivier Faure, at the origin of this idea, launched, at the end of August, at the summer universities of Blois, and then taken up with enthusiasm by its partners from Nupes, La France insoumise on your mind. For his part, the “rebellious” MP Eric Coquerel, interviewed by Agence France-Presse, said he did not understand this decision. “Capitalist rent is well protected”, he added.
The Constitutional Council killed this Nupes flagship project in the bud. He did not consider this surcharge to be a “economic policy reform”, as required by law. The government, also questioned by the Constitutional Council, recalled that a tax reform came under a finance law. However, a RIP cannot circumvent this prerogative of Parliament. At the Socialist Party, it is known that lawyers have been consulted. Even if opinions differed on the subject, the initiative was likely to pass. In terms of RIP, case law remains light. Only the one blocking the privatization of Aéroports de Paris (ADP) has received the green light from the Constitutional Council. Another on the public hospital was challenged.
Power relationship with the executive
La Nupes drew a parallel between this surcharge and the exceptional contribution introduced in 1916 to “funding the war effort”. Was notably targeted TotalEnergies, whose profit jumped 122% in the first half, the pharmaceutical group Sanofi (338% of results in three years) or the shipowner CMA-CGM (15 billion euros in profits in the first semester). If it had come to an end, the measure would have affected all the large companies, in food, energy, transport or finance, whose turnover exceeded 750 million euros, and whose profits would have increased by more than 25% compared to those achieved between 2017 and 2019.
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