Tag Archives: Non classé

The Ukrainian crisis has revived an old debate, namely, how to effectively sanction a state like Russia? Let’s say it straight away: it is time to imagine a new type of sanction focused on the oligarchs who have prospered thanks to the regime in question. This will require the establishment of an international financial register, which will not be to the liking of Western fortunes, whose interests are much more closely linked to those of the Russian and Chinese oligarchs than is sometimes...

How can we explain the rightward shift of the French political landscape? Even if the question is complex and admits of multiple answers, there is little doubt that the experience of Macronism in power bears an overwhelming responsibility. Let us be clear: the dispersion of candidates on the left and the discouraging effect on voters also contribute to explaining this situation. However, this explanation is insufficient. If we take the total of all the left-wing candidates (socialists,...

What can we learn from the new World Inequality Report 2022 published this week? The result of the contributions from over a hundred researchers from all continents, this Report, published every four years, allows us to examine the major fault lines in the world’s inequalities. Beyond the now well-known findings on the rise of income inequalities over the last few decades, three main new features can be identified, relating to wealth, gender and environmental inequalities. Let us start...

With less than five months to go before the first round, what can we expect from the French presidential election scheduled for next April? The question can be asked at two levels: that of the 2022 election, and the broader question of the place of the presidential election in the French political system. As far as the 2022 election is concerned, we have to admit that it is not off to a good start. Given the increasing tendency of the political landscape towards the extreme right-wing, an...

After the « LuxLeaks » in 2014, the « Panama Papers » in 2016 and the « Paradise Papers » in 2017, the revelations of the « Pandora Papers », resulting from a new leak of 12 million documents from offshore finance, show the extent to which the wealthiest continue to evade taxes. Contrary to what is sometimes claimed, there is no reliable indicator that the situation has improved over the last ten years. Before the summer, ProPublica revealed that US billionaires pay almost no taxes...

Twenty years ago, the World Trade Center towers were struck by aeroplanes. The worst attack in history was to lead the United States and some of its allies into a global war against terrorism and the ‘axis of evil’. For the US neo-conservatives, the attack was proof of the theses put forward by Samuel Huntington in 1996: the « clash of civilisations » was becoming the new way of interpreting the world. This publication was their oft-quoted favorite, just as the works published by Milton...

Last weekend, the G7 ministers announced their intention to apply a minimum tax rate of 15% on the offshore profits of multinationals. Let us be clear: if we leave it at that, it is nothing more and nothing less than the formalisation of a real licence to defraud for the most powerful players. For small and medium-sized enterprises as well as for the working and middle classes, it is impossible to create a subsidiary to relocate its profits or income to a tax haven. For all these...

The Covid crisis is forcing us to rethink the tools of redistribution and solidarity. Proposals are springing up everywhere: basic income, job guarantee, inheritance for all. Let’s say it straight away: these proposals are complementary and not substitutable. In the long run, they must all be implemented, in stages and in this order. Let’s start with basic income. Such a system is dramatically lacking today, especially in the South, where the incomes of the working poor have collapsed and...

The Covid-19 crisis, the most serious global health crisis in a century, forces us to fundamentally rethink the notion of international solidarity. Beyond the right to produce vaccines and medical equipment, it is the whole question of the right of poor countries to develop and to receive part of the tax revenues of the world’s multinationals and billionaires that must be asked. We need to move beyond the neo-colonial notion of international aid, paid at the whim of rich countries and...

As the trial of George Floyd’s killer opens in the United States, identity conflicts are festering in Europe and France. Instead of fighting discrimination, the government has embarked on a  course of pursuing the far right and hunting down  social scientists. This is all the more regrettable because there is an urgent need to set up a genuine French and European model to combat discrimination. A model which would embrace the reality of racism and ensure the means to measure and correct...