The crisis of the ‘yellow vests’ raises a key issue both in France and in Europe, namely that of fiscal justice. Since his election, Emmanuel Macron has spent considerable time in explaining to the country that the « premiers de cordée », i.e. the leading fortunes and industrialists, should be treated with care; the top priority was to grant tax cuts to the wealthiest, and as a start, the wealth tax abolished. All this was done at top speed, in a spirit of invincibility and without the...
Read More »« Yellow vests » and tax justice
The crisis of the ‘yellow vests’ raises a key issue both in France and in Europe, namely that of fiscal justice. Since his election, Emmanuel Macron has spent considerable time in explaining to the country that the « premiers de cordée », i.e. the leading fortunes and industrialists, should be treated with care; the top priority was to grant tax cuts to the wealthiest, and as a start, the wealth tax abolished. All this was done at top speed, in a spirit of invincibility and without...
Read More »Manifesto for the democratisation of Europe
The Manifesto reproduced below has been open to signature by over 120 intellectuals, legal scholars, historians, economists and politicians from all over Europe (www.tdem.eu). We, European citizens, from different backgrounds and countries, are today launching this appeal for the in-depth transformation of the European institutions and policies. This Manifesto contains concrete proposals, in particular a project for a Democratization Treaty and a Budget Project which can be adopted and...
Read More »Manifesto for the democratisation of Europe
The Manifesto reproduced below has been open to signature by over 120 intellectuals, legal scholars, historians, economists and politicians from all over Europe (www.tdem.eu). We, European citizens, from different backgrounds and countries, are today launching this appeal for the in-depth transformation of the European institutions and policies. This Manifesto contains concrete proposals, in particular a project for a Democratization Treaty and a Budget Project which can be adopted...
Read More »« Le Monde » and the billionaires
So, the share ownership of the newspaper Le Monde is going to change. A French investment banker is going to sell his shares to a Czech billionaire who himself made a fortune in coal mining and frequently used tax havens. Should we acquiesce in this situation or is it not time to consider the legal and fiscal regime which would enable us to re-shape the model of the media? Let us be very clear: we in no way wish to question the journalists or the management of the press. They campaign...
Read More »« Le Monde » and the billionaires
So, the share ownership of the newspaper Le Monde is going to change. A French investment banker is going to sell his shares to a Czech billionaire who himself made a fortune in coal mining and frequently used tax havens. Should we acquiesce in this situation or is it not time to consider the legal and fiscal regime which would enable us to re-shape the model of the media? Let us be very clear: we in no way wish to question the journalists or the management of the press. They campaign with...
Read More »Brazil: the First Republic under threat
In the United States, it was not until the mid 1960s that the former slaves finally obtained the right to sit in the same buses as whites, to go to the same schools and, at the same time, accede to the right to vote. In Brazil, the right to vote for the poor dates from the 1988 constitution, just a few years before the first multi-racial elections in South Africa in 1994. The comparison may shock: the population in Brazil is much more mixed than the two other countries. In 2010, in...
Read More »Brazil: the First Republic under threat
In the United States, it was not until the mid 1960s that the former slaves finally obtained the right to sit in the same buses as whites, to go to the same schools and, at the same time, accede to the right to vote. In Brazil, the right to vote for the poor dates from the 1988 constitution, just a few years before the first multi-racial elections in South Africa in 1994. The comparison may shock: the population in Brazil is much more mixed than the two other countries. In 2010, in the...
Read More »Social-nativism, the Italian nightmare
Since Spring 2018, Italy has been governed by a strange social-nativist coalition of the Five Star Movement (M5S) and the Lega, (the former Northern League). The Five Star Movement (M5S) is an anti-system and anti-establishment party, which is unclassifiable in the usual left-right typologies but one of its leitmotifs is a guaranteed basic income. The Lega is a regionalist and anti-tax movement, now converted into a nationalist party specialised in hunting foreigners. It would be an...
Read More »Europe, migrants and trade
While European leaders are preparing to tighten the conditions of entry into the European Union it is worth trying to get a clearer picture of the current patterns of migration and more broadly of Europe’s positioning in the globalisation process. The data available are incomplete but are sufficient to establish the main orders of magnitude. The most comprehensive data are those gathered by the United Nations Population Division on the basis of demographic statistics provided by each...
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