PARIS: France Inc. is rooting for former Prime Minister Francois Fillon to become the country’s next president, with business lobbies backing his campaign pledges to cut taxes and carry out sweeping labor reforms.
The 62-year-old conservative defeated rival Alain Juppe on Sunday in the second-round run off to become the Republican party candidate for the 2017 presidential election. With incumbent Socialist President Francois Hollande attaining near-record lows in opinion surveys, and the party in disarray, polls suggest Fillon is likely to face and defeat Marine Le Pen, leader of the anti-immigrant, anti-euro National Front, in the final round of the election in May.
A career politician, Fillon was prime minister for five years under former President Nicolas Sarkozy as well as having been minister four times in three previous governments. A fan of Margaret Thatcher, he is offering voters a program of economic reforms that include lowering labor costs, doing away with a wealth tax and 40 billion euros ($42 billion) in tax cuts for companies over five years. These include lowering France’s corporate tax rate to 25 percent, compared with 34.4 percent currently and rates of 30.2 percent in Germany and 20 percent in the U.K.
“François Fillon has made some very strong promises” that move in the right direction, said Pierre de Lauzun, who heads the Amafi organization representing French financial market participants, whose 138 members include JP Morgan Securities and BNP Paribas Securities Services. Fillon’s plan is more “energetic, courageous and far-reaching” than that of his rivals, he said.
In a country where growth and employment lag European averages, potentially the most contentious aspect of Fillon’s plan is to scrap France’s 35-hour work week, which critics say hinders the ability of manufacturers to compete in the global market. The biggest employers’ group Medef has long lobbied for its abolition as a way to entice more investment and job creation, as well as making French workers more competitive.
