>An example, 200+ billion euros are given yearly to large companies as tax breaks and the like, without the government asking anything in return.

Man, that must feel like the rug pull of the century for French taxpayers, given that despite these tax breaks, French companies like Airbus and ST are incorporated in the Netherlands and paying(more like, NOT) taxes there instead of France.

I'd be pissed too, and I'd want my money back.

Unless of course the purpose of those tax breaks was actually to keep some jobs in France and not see more of them move to cost efficient places like eastern Europe or north Africa.

>[Taxes] are already some of the highest as a percentage of GDP in the world.

Is this the right metric: "Tax revenue (% of GDP)"?[0]

If so, France ranks 28 at 23.1% of GDP. The highest non-island developed country is Denmark at 31.4%. Denmark's GDP per capita is 1.5x France. New Zeland's GDP per capita is similar to France and their GDP to tax rate is 29.6% which is the fifth highest. Does New Zeland face similar problems as France? I think I agree with your implication that simply increasing the tax to GDP ratio is not a magic bullet.

In general, the data here is really interesting. Germany and the US have a pretty similar value, both averaging at about 11% in recent years. I would have assumed that Germany would have a higher rate. I wonder if this data is misleading somehow or if my assumptions were just wrong here. I guess one variable missing here is government debt, which is not a tax but is still used to pay for government expenses.

[0] Global: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/GC.TAX.TOTL.GD.ZS?most_...

France over time: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/GC.TAX.TOTL.GD.ZS?most_...

Here is the solution:

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The transaction cost approach means that the profit motive isn't a barrier either. If anything, you can make money off of solving the problem. That in itself is probably the ultimate proof that communism is wrong, because it turns communism into a self-hating ideology. Imagine being a communist controlling 1/3 of the world and deciding that you would rather see your "empire" crumble rather than convert the last 2/3 through irresistible persuasion/temptation. Not just that, but you literally start a campaign against the idea of doing so. You'd rather doom yourself than admit being a little bit wrong for even more power.

I would genuinely love to hear more of an explanation from French people about why the French Revolution was considered a success. As best I understand it, the French Revolution of 1789 did succeed in removing the monarchy but devolved into le règne de la terreur where the leaders were guillotining each other and various political enemies for about ten years(?) before Napoleon became the new monarch. Perhaps it can be viewed as a stepping stone in the decades long process to modern France but the short term outcome of the French Revolution seems pretty objectively terrible to me.

And yet there have been 5 French Republics since then.

Wow. What in the world are they teaching kids in school these days?

Interestingly, while Denmark has very low wealth inequality, Norway's is only middling, and Sweden's is the highest in Europe, in the same range as the US, Brazil and Russia. The Scandinavian countries have very low _income_ inequality (post-transfers).

Income equality is probably more important than wealth equality in terms of quality of life, but wealth inequality isn't nothing.

(Also you have to be a bit careful with wealth inequality figures, as they can be distorted by local practices; for instance in some countries where defined benefit pensions are standard, such a pension, even though clearly valuable, may not be assessed as wealth, and in some countries it may be common to have a long-term/effectively life right to a fixed-cost rental, which again, is wealth-like, but probably not assessed as wealth.)

You mean the ones who are selling so much oil they put a lot of it in a sovereign wealth fund? Sure.

I think the real question is how to make it work without oil money coming in. Without the constant extra help from foreign countries that money buys. France has some, but not much. Certainly not enough to cover all state expenses and have left over.

They have A LOT of rich people.

The thing is people don't care about how many rich people there are out there, as long as they can get a good life out of their labor (good job, good house, etc) but since capitalism has optimized these out of the reach for most people nowadays, then they start to blame rich people for everything, with the definition of the word 'rich' here being very fluid, ending up to mean just about everyone who has more than they do, and not just your Bezos, Musk and Saudi kings, so any taxes on the "rich" ends up only on the hard working middle class again.

It's not about wealthy people alone. You need staff to clean retirees sh!t (literally) in a country where the median age is 42.3 and rising.

France overspent in the 2000s and 2010s due to populist politics, and now the chickens have come to roost. Something needs to give in France, otherwise it'll become an Italy 2.0.

> Do we think this is why French government added so many immigrants in recent times?

It's part of the official discourse.

Downvoters: You're proving my point by refusing to engage with logic.

Who do you propose to sell all that stuff to?

...for 10 years. After that, you're back in the hole that you were in before, but without anything to draw on. They're currently taking in the equivalent of $500 billion but spending $1.8 trillion, with a GDP of $3 trillion.

Understand that the non-wealthy wouldn't get anything new, it would just be a continuance of their current services and benefits. They've have 10 years to increase their GDP by 50% to get the tax revenue to get to a balanced budget. That's simply not happening without obscene inflation, with the corresponding increase in government spending on goods and services, keeping them out of whack.

What happens on year 11?

> Nobody has even close to an absolute majority in the parlement.

If the parliament would elect the government, the situation would be exactly as problematic as it is now. I don't see how the fact that the president chooses the prime-minister has any impact on the stability of the system.

You have pointed out a lot of true things, but none of them seems to be a your-system-specific-cause of the current instability.

I don't understand how a 30-30-30 split would work any better if parliament elected the government instead of the president. They would still be unable to reach any agreement, including an agreement on who to put in the government.

A lot of people complain about American FPTP system. But it seems that the French system, with a final round of top 2 in case no one gets clear majority, isn't any better. I am also familiar with the Indian system which gives rise to coalition politics which has its own problems.

Every tax system has a point where extracting more means less economic activity. I think that also applies to paperwork and all the hoops you jump through. I wish I knew where it was, I think that is a big debate :)

But at some point, people give up, they don't start businesses, and if they do, they form them in the USA. Or they move nearby, a lot of French people went to Belgium the last time taxes increased a lot.

That does happen.

> Their real wealth is not in the money, of with they have plenty, but rather in endless opportunities.

That's not solvable with tax policy. The solution to that is DEI, but HN froths at the mouth when those 3 letters are pronounced.

The effective tax rates on high income individuals is likely much less. There is a large correlation between income and wealth, and wealth increase through asset appreciation is largely not taxed, or at best taxed at much more favorable rates than general income tax.

Tax on income is not the problem, it's tax on wealth gained through asset value increase.

You are implying the top 1% of wealthy people in france is related to income tax?