While the government and its budget are still hanging by a thread, Bernard Arnault, the luxury industry tycoon, has stirred up controversy by sharply criticizing Bayrou’s policies.

"In the USA, corporate taxes are dropping to 15%, factories are subsidized in a number of states [...]. Here, corporate taxes are set to increase by 40% [...]. If you want to encourage companies to relocate, there’s no better way to do it!" he declared.

His threat to leave is a pretty open one: if the government insists on making him pay more taxes, the man whose fortune is worth 200 billion euros and who employs 40,000 people in France will move to the US—capitalist paradise—and join his friend Trump.

This statement kicked off a full-blown crusade on the part of French businessmen, with all the CEOs of the top 40 companies on the French stock market following suit. These gentlemen—who paid out 80 billion euros in dividends to their shareholders in 2022, 97 billion in 2023 and nearly 100 billion in 2024—are complaining about being "pounded with taxes” all because the government wants their companies to pay a one-time tax amounting to 8 billion in 2025! We could laugh about it if it wasn’t so shocking.

Macron has significantly reduced taxes on businesses and the wealthy over the past seven years. In doing so, he has deepened the public deficit. And now that the government is faced with such a big debt and is calling on the rich to make a tiny contribution to pay for it, the bosses are in an uproar. Capitalists can be so ungrateful to the politicians that serve them so well!

Yet instead of getting angry, Bayrou apologized profusely. He swore he was not abandoning Macron’s pro-business policies and that next year—if he’s still in power—he will implement reforms to better serve these gentlemen. Their fortunes have doubled or tripled in recent years, they couldn’t possibly stop growing!

The bosses’ provocative reactions are consistent with the fierce offensive being led against workers. Three hundred plans to cut jobs are currently underway across the country and 250,000 jobs could be lost. On top of that, there has been a wave of layoffs after 60,000 smaller companies under pressure from big corporations and banks went bankrupt.

"It’s not greed; we’re forced to do this because we aren’t competitive enough," the bosses of big companies keep repeating. For Michelin’s CEO, who is shutting down factories in Cholet and Vannes and cutting 1,254 jobs, the reasoning is simple: "Manufacturing in France isn’t competitive enough anymore!"

These whiners are liars above all. Michelin’s CEO, for example, has conveniently failed to mention that despite the company’s so-called difficulties, it still rakes in 2 billion euros in profits every year.

Like all capitalists, they always want more. At a time when trade wars are fierce and with Trump determined to ensure that the American bourgeoisie gets the biggest share of all, the struggle among capitalists is ruthless. The only way for them to stay in the game is to intensify exploitation and to benefit from a government willing to sacrifice whatever it takes for their business affairs.

Whenever bosses talk about "staying competitive" we know that we’re the ones who will pay the price. Pitting workers against each other—country against country, region against region, factories against factories and even workshop against workshop—to drive wages down, cut jobs and intensify exploitation, that’s how they get rich. Workers have everything to lose in this race to remain competitive.

All the political parties, from LFI (Unsubmissive France) to RN (National Rally) and even the PCF (French Communist Party) have suggested waging economic war by fighting back with more protectionism. But the issue is not about designing a policy to help the Arnault, Michelin and Dassault families become the most competitive around the world. On the contrary, it is about stopping them from dragging us deeper into their trade war, which is destructive for workers and for society as a whole.

If there’s anyone workers should be censoring, it’s capitalists, and it’s their system that must be overthrown. Begging big bosses to be more supportive and patriotic—as some union leaders do—is completely pointless. Advising them on industrial policy is just as futile. The bosses of big corporations will only ever do what they must to make more money. And we can be sure that it will be against us!

Nathalie Arthaud