French lawmakers were due on Saturday to vote on a wealth tax, after the centre-left Socialist Party threatened to use its swing vote to topple the government if the levy was not added in next year's austerity budget.
France is under pressure to pass a spending bill by an end-of-year deadline to rein in its deficit and rising debt, but efforts have been hampered by a political crisis.
The country's third prime minister in a little over a year, Sébastien Lecornu has promised to get the job done, after the legislature ousted his two predecessors over cost-cutting measures.
France’s pension reform suspended, what is ahead for Lecornu government?
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Lecornu survived a confidence vote earlier this month by agreeing to suspend a deeply unpopular pensions reform under pressure from the Socialists.
But the Socialists have also demanded a tax on the ultra-wealthy, without which they have threatened to topple his government as soon as Monday.
They originally requested a levy, named after French economist Gabriel Zucman, who hoped to raise around €20 billion ($27 billion) per year from just 1,800 wealthy households.
Zucman's proposal was to make people with at least €100 million in assets pay a minimum tax of two percent on that wealth.
Read more‘Zucman tax’: Push to tax the super-rich could make or break France’s next government
Faure gave the example of French billionaire Bernard Arnault – one of the world's 10 wealthiest people – whose luxury goods-based fortune last week jumped by a staggering $19 billion overnight.
But the far right and Lecornu's government are against taxing professional assets, which this levy would target.
The government instead wants to tax wealth management holdings with at least five million euros in assets.
The Socialists have now suggested a minimum three-percent tax on assets of 10 million euros and above, but excluded family and "innovative" businesses in what they hope is a concession to the government.
Their proposal is to be debated in parliament on Saturday.
As lawmakers set to work, Zucman warned the Socialists not to compromise on his original proposal.
Watch more'Zucman tax': Calls to tax the ultra-rich grow louder in France
Creating a tax "riddled with loopholes, offering opportunities for evasion ... is condemning oneself to failure", he told France Inter radio.
France has been mired in political deadlock since President Emmanuel Macron last year called for snap parliamentary elections, hoping to cement his power.
His centrist bloc instead lost its majority, with both the far right and the left-wing New Popular Front alliance gaining seats, leaving the parliament divided between three bitterly opposed political groupings.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)
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