François Hollande vows to tax the rich to pay off French deficitLeftwing frontrunner in presidential race launches manifesto
François Hollande, the leftwing frontrunner in the French presidential race, has vowed to make the rich pay the highest price to help drag France out of its economic crisis, while promising to pump more money into schools and state-assisted jobs.
The Socialist rural MP, who recently declared "my real adversary in this campaign is the world of finance", launched his manifesto on Thursday, a road map of how the left would deal with the financial crisis. Hollande said he would raise taxes for banks and big companies as well as France's richest people, and use the money to help wipe out the nation's crippling public deficit.
By scrapping some €29bn (£24bn) worth of tax breaks for wealthier people introduced under Nicolas Sarkozy, he said he could find €20bn to deal with the corrosion of French society: record unemployment, soaring youth jobless figures and an education system that has been shamed as one of the most unequal in Europe, where one in six children leave with no qualifications.
Read more here:http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/26/francois-hollande-french-presidential-manifesto
It is a pity we have no party in this country that will tackle the inequality, the tax and pension breaks for the richest and the wealth divide that characterise our society.
