//
you're reading...
France

French give thumbs up to Mélenchon’s plan to boost minimum wage

One in two French back Jean Luc Mélenchon’s proposal to increase the minimum wage from €1,400 to €1,700 a month.

A new poll found that 43% think the plan by the radical Left Front’s Presidential candidate is ‘justified’, with 55% backing from people who indicate support for the Socialist Party.

The Socialist candidate Francois Hollande, currently frontrunner against incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy, has made no commitment to lifting wages.

54% of young people (18-24) back the measure with support among workers at 52-54%.

Mélenchon, who recent polls have put in third place in the French Presidential election, argues that a substantial rise for France’s poorest workers, alongside a overall increase in wages, pensions and welfare minima is not only fair, but economically sound as it will boost consumer spending and so benefit the struggling French economy.

Mélenchon’s programme also includes implementing a maximum pay differential of 1 to 20 in all businesses and 100% tax on incomes above €360,000 a year.

These policies together would also tackle poverty and widening inequalities of wealth.

The leader of the Left Front – an alliance including former Socialists like Mélenchon, now in the Left Party, and the French Communist Party –  has made a major impact on the elections, forcing both Hollande and Sarkozy to adopt policies less friendly to business and banks.

The French will cast their votes for head of state on April 22 and very likely again in a run-off election on May 6 between the Socialist and right-wing UMP candidates.

Humanite

The full Mélenchon programme

About revoltingeurope

Writer on Europe's Left, trade union and social movements @tomgilltweets or @revoltingeurope

Discussion

No comments yet.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out / Change )

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out / Change )

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out / Change )

You are commenting using your Google+ account. Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s

Twitter Updates

  • The PM promised tough action on tax transparency. We need commitments at #AntiCorruption Summit today #EndTaxHavens thndr.me/Q5M0Z9 16 hours ago
  • RT @StatewatchEU: Refugee crisis: latest news from across Europe (21 news stories, documents and commentaries, 22-23.12.15) https://t.co/dP… 4 months ago
  • Tax Transparency Now: I've signed a petition calling on EU finance ministers to crack down on corporate tax dodging waronwant.org/cbc 4 months ago
  • Spanish General Election: Radical left Podemos + United Left (6m) overtakes, by half million votes, socialists (5.5m) at national level 4 months ago
  • RT @AlbertoNardelli: Spain election - voter turnout: 73.21%, from 68.94% in 2011. #20D 4 months ago
  • RT @ronanburtenshaw: #Podemos win the Basque Country and Catalonia, second in Madrid, third in Andalucía. #SpanishElections 4 months ago
  • RT @nickdearden75: Thousands listen to @MhairiBlack and @HackneyAbbott outside parliament. Both say #DontBombSyria https://t.co/cOwRe5ANPR 5 months ago
  • RT @kmflett: Sue Jones tells socialist history seminar early modern pirates memoirs dont mention sex but do note dolphin was more edible th… 5 months ago
  • RT @NelsonKevan: Women, communists and foreigners: the forgotten heroes of Paris, 1945 | via @Telegraph telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews… 5 months ago
  • Greece’s 50 First Days Under the New Government In Numbers. greece.greekreporter.com/2015/11/12/gre… greece.greekreporter.com/2015/11/12/gre… 6 months ago
Follow @tomgilltweets

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

DATA

Anti-social Europe in numbers

WAGES SLIDE

Key facts and figures on wages across the EU

Wealth Inequality in Europe

Get the key facts and figures

RADICAL VOICES

A different take on European issues

Italy’s Healthcare Crisis

Health services are ‘close to collapse’ in Rome, Turin and Naples after years of cuts and privatisation.

550 days, 29 Workers, Zero Job Losses

How a few determined Italian women stopped their factory closing and protected their livelihoods

Filthy Rich

France's Bernard Arnault of the Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy (LVMH) empire is worth $41 billion. Check out Europe's rich list

SANTA DRAGHI’S COMING

Private banks receive half-trillion-euro gift from ECB

POPULAR FIGHTBACK

Workers and citizens stand up for themselves

FLORENCE’S BUS LUMACA

Workers are on a go-slow over privatisation

Popular resistance delivers results

Lessons from the victory against Madrid privatisation plan

FRENCH FACTORY OCCUPATION

Hundreds of workers occupied the factory of ArcelorMittal in Florange in the north of France

RSS Watching Corporate Europe

  • TTIP leaks highlight the dangers of regulatory cooperation
  • The lobby firm that works both sides of the room
  • Commission CON-sultations

RSS Fight discrimination in Europe – Amnesty Int’l

  • An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

in Italy the home is a very dangerous place to be

LABOUR RIGHTS

Follow Revolting Europe on WordPress.com

Top Clicks

  • bloomberg.com/billionaire…
  • dw.de/dw/article/0,,15791…
  • uk.news.yahoo.com/worlds-…
  • bloomberg.com/billionaire…
  • revoltingeurope.files.wor…

Subjects

Meta

EUROPE NEEDS A CITIZENS’ REVOLUTION

Read the statement by Lafontaine and Melenchon

The Troika in Portugal – Three Years On

A success story?

THE EURO

The Dossier

FRANCE

GERMANY

GREECE

ITALY

PORTUGAL

SPAIN

%d bloggers like this: