FRANCE /THE NEW POPULAR FRONT AMBITIOUS POLICIES

FRANCE /THE NEW POPULAR FRONT AMBITIOUS POLICIES

1. Improve the purchasing power of poor and lower-middle class people.
2. Substantial increase in the minimum wage. The minimum wage to be raised from €1,399 net per month to €1,600 . The disability allowance to be raised to the new minimum wage from the current maximum of €1,016.05.
3. Wages to be indexed to prices.
4. Free school lunches.
5. Prioritizing investment in the future by increasing public spending on infrastructure throughout the country, including in isolated rural areas as well as in health, education and research.
6. Investment in future growth and productivity.
7. Progressive wealth taxation. Restore the wealth tax abolished by Mr Macron, close tax loopholes and introduce a maximum inheritance. Also  increase inheritance tax.
8. Introduction of an exit tax.
9. Effective taxation of multinational firms.
10. Fight against social, fiscal and environmental dumping.
11. Give workers more power within the companies that employ them by improving corporate governance, for example, reserving a third of the seats on company boards for employees’ representatives.
12. Implement a climate plan aiming to hit net zero  by 2050 and a moratorium on new motorways on environmental grounds.
13. Create a status for climate displaced people.
14. Focus more explicitly on renewables.
15. Pledge to make France a European leader in marine technology, in particular offshore wind and the development of tidal energy.
16. Pledge to develop industry to end France and Europe’s dependence on international markets for strategic sectors such as electric cars and solar panels.
17. Ban imports that do not respect France’s environment standards.
18. Help migrants cross the Mediterranean and give special status to climate refugees.
19. Repeal laws including those delaying welfare payments to migrants and introducing migration quotas.
20. Guarantee French citizenship to migrants’ children born in France, which the law passed in December 2023 restricted.
21. Create a new status for ‘climate-displaced persons’ and give access to healthcare to illegal migrants.
22. Revise reforms to EU asylum rules to ensure ‘a dignified welcome to migrants’.
23. Set a sea and land rescue agency for migrants at a European level.
24. Measures to lower fares on public transport.
25. Wants a ban on the herbicide glyphosate and the pesticide neonicotinoids, which kills bees. Farmers affected will get financial support. It also wants ecocide to be recognized as a crime and advocates the creation of an international court of environmental justice.
26. Soft on Hamas and Vladimir Putin.
27. Calls for continued arm deliveries to Ukraine. Pledge to push for the cancellation of Ukrainian foreign debt, the seizure of oligarchs’ assets and sending peacekeepers to secure nuclear power stations.
28. Promises to support the International Criminal Court in its prosecution of Hamas leaders and Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister.
29. Calls for the immediate recognition of the state of Palestine, a ceasefire in Gaza, and for sanctions on Israel for breaking international law, including an embargo on arms deliveries.
30. While it says the hostages held by Hamas must be freed, it also wants to end French support ‘for Netanyahu’s extreme Right-wing supremacist government’.
31. People undergoing gender transition should get access to fertility treatments for the first time. They would also be allowed to change their status on the civil register for free  and the group would launch an effort to ‘eradicate violence against LGTBQI people’.
32. Inter-ministerial plans to combat anti-Semitism and Islamophobia will be launched.
33. Calls for equal pay between men and women and for the right for women to have leave during their periods. Earmarks € 2.6 billion to combat sexist and sexual violence.
34. Reverse Macron’s raising of the retirement age to 64  and reaffirm the common objective of the right to retire at 60
35. Bring back early retirement for jobs deemed physically or mentally arduous which were introduced by Macron and introduce surcharges on high salaries. Index-link pensions to wages and inflation.
36. The price of certain food products, energy and fuel to be frozen by decree.
37. Increase income tax from a five-tiered system to 14 so that lower earners will pay less tax.
38. Reduce class sizes to fewer than the European average of 19 pupils per class.
39. Set itself a target of ‘building 200,000 public housing units a year for five years to the most ambitious ecological standards’.
40. Plans to introduce compulsory rent controls in some areas and abolish a law facilitating evictions and increasing penalties for squatters.
41. Introduce proportional representation to the National Assembly and free admission to national museums.
42. Increase art and culture budget to 1 per cent of GDP and calls for more hiring across public services such as health care.
43. Guarantee public broadcasting and take measures to prevent the media from being controlled by a small number of individuals.