Wednesday, March 09, 2011

France UnCut joins the fray

Update: a website is now available.

Images of trailers of fresh manure dumped on the doorsteps of tax dodging businesses flashed across our minds when we heard this afternoon that France Uncut is getting underway. This follows recent launches of the Uncut phenomenon in the USA , Canada and Australia.

According to Marianne (a popular French current affairs magazine) France Uncut is calling for a day of action on 26th March to protest against corporate tax avoidance. The article cites leading French companies, petrol giant Total and luxury goods firm LVMH, as potential targets for Uncut events. Larger French companies make extensive use of tax havens, bringing their effective tax rate down to as low as 8 percent rather than the nominal rate of 33 percent.

Like Thatcherism, the Uncut movement took root in Britain and subsequently caught on elsewhere. Dare we hope that this extraordinary mobilisation of public feelings against tax cheating and the austerity agenda foisted on ordinary people by compliant politicians in the pockets of greedy bankers will provide political momentum for long overdue systemic changes?

For more on France Uncut, read here and here. (With a rough web translation of the Marianne story here.)

3 Comments:

Blogger panda harris said...

http://www.internationaluncut.com/ - went global overnight!!

10:46 am  
Blogger panda harris said...

http://www.internationaluncut.com/

10:47 am  
Anonymous Stefanie said...

Nice post which rance Uncut is calling for a day of action on 26th March to protest against corporate tax avoidance. The article cites leading French companies, petrol giant Total and luxury goods firm LVMH, as potential targets for Uncut events. Larger French companies make extensive use of tax havens, bringing their effective tax rate down to as low as 8 percent rather than the nominal rate of 33 percent. Thanks a lot for posting this article.

4:18 am  

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