After the presidential campaign and that for the legislative elections, will purchasing power inflame the debates in the National Assembly? Inflation in energy and food prices remains at the heart of French people’s concerns. “The theme of purchasing power crushes everything, even more than during the presidential election”, confirms Brice Teinturier, Deputy CEO of Ipsos. It must be the subject of the first discussions of the new Assembly, as soon as it is constituted: the executive intends to present, on June 29, in the Council of Ministers, a bill on purchasing power, at the same time as the amending finance bill (PLFR). Extension of the price shield on gas and electricity, fuel discount, increase in social minima, indexation of pensions to inflation, thawing of the index point for civil servants… The two texts would be examined by the deputies in the process.
Enough to promise lively debates between the presidential party and the New People’s Ecological and Social Union (Nupes), whose different formations have in common to place the subject at the heart of their proposals. The “shared program” of Nupes provides for a blocking of the prices of basic necessities, a minimum wage of 1,500 euros net per month, a 10% increase in the index point for civil servants and an increase in pensions. But also a “dignity guarantee” so that no Frenchman lives below the poverty line (1,063 euros for a single person), an autonomy allowance from the age of 18 or even a ceiling on rents.
Measurements “realistic, quantified and necessary”as Jean-Luc Mélenchon and the economists who participated in the development of the program were to argue on Tuesday, June 7 at a press conference. “We are predicted chaos [avec ce programme]but the chaos is already largely there, and we realize after forty years of neoliberalism that the market is not able to solve all the problems”, highlighted Eric Berr, lecturer at the University of Bordeaux and member of the “parliament” of Nupes. An allusion to the recent attacks by economist Philippe Aghion, a supporter of Emmanuel Macron during the 2017 campaign, who mocked, mid-May in The echoes, le “think-wrong” economic proposals from Nupes. Or to a note from the Terra Nova think tank, published in mid-May, which talks about “foreseeable disaster”.
“The program of Nupes is the explosion of unemployment, the return of relocations and the outbreak of public deficits”deplores, for his part, the MoDem deputy of Yvelines Jean-Noël Barrot. “Five years ago, we were taken for the red peril. Today, our ideas are more and more in the majority: even the government is talking about ecological planning and relocation”underlines the economist Aurélie Trouvé, lecturer at AgroParisTech and president of the “parliament” of Nupes.
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