by afew
Tue Oct 12th, 2010 at 06:13:10 AM EST
On a day of strikes and demonstrations against one of Sarkozy's thin-end-of-the-wedge "reforms", (there is no alternative but to reduce the social protection provided by national retirement pensions), Pierre Haski on Rue89 points to this year's freshly-published Crédit Suisse Annual Global Wealth Report. Which tells us that, in terms of "net worth individuals", France is doing very nicely, thank you. From the Crédit Suisse pdf:
Although it has just 1.1% of the world’s adults, France ranks fourth among nations in aggregate household wealth – behind China and just ahead of Germany. Europe as a whole accounts for 35% of the individuals in the global top 1%, but France itself contributes a quarter of the European contingent. This reflects not only high average assets in France, but also the somewhat greater inequality of wealth than is seen in most other EU countries.
"Better" still, France is Number Three in the world ranking of dollar millionaires (one out of eleven $millionaires in the world is French).
Sarko, of course, is known for his tax shield mechanism that protects high incomes from spoliation, and stands for getting rid of the feeble existing wealth tax (or keeping it feeble in any case).
But retirement pensions? You're dreaming.
On that "inequality" point, Haski quotes recent INSEE figures that show that 13% of the French population has less than €949 per capita per month income.
| Cocorico : la France compte plus de millionnaires que les autres | Rue89 | | Cock-a-doodle-doo: France has more millionaires than the others | Rue89 |
| Cette double évolution fournit une toile de fond intéressante à la confrontation sociale qui s'annonce. Dans un pays qui compte un quart des millionnaires en dollars d'Europe, comment se fait-il que la perception d'une grande majorité des Français soit celle d'une menace de déclassement, d'une dégradation progressive de leur niveau de vie, d'entorses aux principes d'égalité qui fondent la République ? | | This double movement (in wealth and incomes) provides an interesting backdrop to the social confrontation that is to come. In a country that has one quarter of Europe's dollar millionaires, how come the perception of the great majority of French is of being under the threat of losing rank, of a progressive worsening of their standard of living, of twisting of the Republic's founding principles of equality? |
