None of them really stood out. Monday evening, the five candidates for the nomination of Les Républicains (LR) for the 2022 presidential election, Valérie Pécresse, Michel Barnier, Xavier Bertrand, Eric Ciotti and Philippe Juvin, debated live for three hours. The opportunity to put forward their proposals on taxation, working time or security.
20 minutes review three of their statements.
What Eric Ciotti said: “The inheritance tax is a tax on death […]. When we leave this land, our children are called upon to pay this tax which has been abolished in half of the OECD countries ”.
Is it right ? The assertion of the member for Alpes-Maritimes is denied by the OECD. In a report published in October, the organization
Explain that “the majority of OECD countries tax inheritance”. In detail, this represents 24 states out of 36.
Ten countries have chosen to abolish inheritance taxation, while two, Estonia and Latvia, have never imposed them. A choice made “because of a lack of political support for this tax,” notes the OECD.
Among the countries that impose these inheritances, the rates vary, the organization further notes. In France, the rate may well rise to 45% if one chooses to pass on to his direct heirs, as Eric Ciotti has argued, but it concerns the largest estates: so that such a rate s ‘applies, the taxable portion must amount to 1,805,677 euros. However, various tax provisions make it possible to reduce the taxes applying to the transmission of assets, such as noted it a report written in February by Socialist deputy Christine Pirès-Beaune.
What Xavier Bertrand said: “France is the country where we work the least in all of Europe. “
Is it right ? No. If we look at the number of hours worked per week for a full-time job, the French worked an average of 40.4 hours per week in 2020,
according to the European statistics agency Eurostat. In Denmark, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, the Netherlands, Romania, Finland and even Luxembourg, employees worked fewer hours than the French (40.3 hours for Luxembourgers, 38.4 hours for Danes). The euro area average for 2020 is 40.6 hours.
What Valérie Pécresse said: “We know that 60% of everyday crimes are committed by 5% of repeat offenders. “
Is it right ? Valérie Pécresse seems to be inspired here by declarations of a police unionist, who had launched this figure in May on the antenna of France Info. This declaration is in line with the declarations of Nicolas Sarkozy, who affirmed during his mandate that “5% of delinquents make 50% of delinquency”.
This statement by the former head of state was a misreading of a report published in 2000, based on a survey conducted in 1999, as the remember France Info. Sébastien Roché, the sociologist co-author of this study, had already warned in 2007 to our colleagues
of World against reading this study too quickly: “I spoke of 5% of an age group [des jeunes de 13 à 19 ans] and not 5% of offenders who have already committed a crime. “
Who commits the recurrences? a published report by the Ministry of Justice in July 2021 allows us to know a little more about the profile of these offenders. The authors of this study looked at the path taken by people who have come of age from prison. A third of those leaving prison in 2016 (31%) “were again sentenced for an offense committed in the year of their release,” notes the ministry. It is the perpetrators of “infringement of property” who “repeat the offense most often”. The risk of recidivism increases if the perpetrator is male, if he is young and if he has been convicted multiple times.