Will the ballot be decided on the question of purchasing power? Two political movements, each armed with its own way of reading the world, seem ready to confront each other on Sunday June 12 and 19, 2022. On the one hand, there is Renaissance. The presidential party, formerly called La République en Marche, supports the government, its action and its commitments in favor of the French portfolio. On the other, there is the New Popular Ecological and Social Union (or NUPES), which has not failed to unveil its own plan in favor of household purchasing power.
The “Robin Hood” plan, as the candidates for the legislative elections may have called it, is based on a “better distribution of wealth”. It includes a number of specific measures, aimed at shifting the burden caused by inflation from “salaries” to “profits”, notes Capital on the basis of statements by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of France Insoumise. Its formation is at the heart of the union of the left and part of the measures that the NUPES could take if it won the National Assembly is therefore taken from its program.
Very concretely, the project led by NUPES is based on a series of measures, some of which are already known to have already been mentioned. The first would be to freeze the prices of basic necessities by decree. It would then be followed by the vote of a law supposed to allow the State to regulate, after negotiation, “the price of a basket of basic necessities”, specifies the deputy LFI Clémence Guetté. And she takes the example of a comparable device existing “in Overseas”.
However, the program advocated by the Nupes does not stop there: it is not only a question of limiting the expenses of French women and men, on the contrary!
In general, notes Midi Libre, the NUPES bets above all on the improvement of life through the increase of wages and incomes. This is why the elected representatives of the New Popular Ecological and Social Union intend to raise the minimum wage by decree to 1500 euros net. They also want to introduce an autonomy allowance for young people, which would be accompanied by a “dignity guarantee”. Objective assumed? That no one has “an income below the poverty line”.
Pensioners are not forgotten by NUPES either. They provide for the increase in small pensions, which will have to be brought to the level of the new Smic, itself revalued to 1,500 euros net. A costly measure, estimated at 25 billion euros.
Is the NUPES program really serious? Many are the opponents of the left who seek to discredit the project carried by Jean-Luc Mélenchon and his political formation.
It is clear, in any case, that the NUPES program is expensive. It is based, recalls Le Nouvel Observateur on its site, on 250 billion euros of public expenditure, which represents 10% of GDP? Several measures, such as the return of retirement at 60. So many economically unsustainable proposals, according to these opponents.
However, informs Public Sénat, many economists defend the relevance of such a project and welcome “a timely debate”, not without underlining the “erroneous” nature of the most alarmist hypotheses about the measures presented.
