Macron postpones gas tax for 6 months
Macron gives in to the protestors—sort of, kind of, a little bit:
Faced with another weekend of destructive protests by the “gilets jaunes”—or yellow vests—Prime Minister Édouard Philippe told a news conference Tuesday the tax hike would be pushed back six months. The worst riots to hit Paris in decades erupted during antigovernment protests Saturday, leaving the city’s shopping and tourist center dotted with burning cars and broken storefronts. Protesters vandalized the Arc de Triomphe, rattling Mr. Macron’s administration and the nation.
“No tax is worth threatening the unity of the nation,” Mr. Philippe said.
I don’t have my finger on the pulse of France, but I would venture to say that the “unity of the nation” is threatened by more than just this tax, and a delay will not change that fact.
I also think that the French want to have their cake and eat it too. In this respect they are hardly unique; it’s a common human desire, and welfare states give people the illusion of being able to accomplish it—for a while, that is, until (as Margaret Thatcher remarked about socialism) they run out of other people’s money.
From the WSJ [emphasis mine]:
The [gas tax hike] approach, however, alienated swaths of French people who live in rural areas and rely on their cars to reach their jobs in urban areas. It also compounded the public’s perception that rural France has borne the brunt of globalism’s impact, as forces such as e-commerce and big box retail have left villages and towns hollowed out.
The result: hundreds-of-thousands of people flocked to Paris and other cities around France, blocking roads, clashing with police and demanding the resignation of Mr. Macron.
The Macron government hopes that in the next six months the opposition will enter into negotiations with them on this, which so far the opposition has refused to do. My guess is that the opposition’s leaders have a much bigger agenda than this tax, and that the rank and file may not be aware of that agenda.
What that agenda might be I’m not sure, but as I wrote yesterday there are whiffs of both left and right in this movement. Once people become dependent on certain perks of the welfare state they are loathe to give them up, and they often just want those “other people” (the ones with the money) to be further tapped in order to pay for those things.
In Europe (as in the US, but it may be more acute in Europe), elements of French society (particularly, as the article indicates, those living in more rural areas) also feel that “immigrants” have been given things at their expense. This may indeed be correct, and it’s potentially a much greater threat to “the unity of the nation” than a gas tax would ever be.
It’s clear that Muslim immigration is causing, in France, the same kinds of problems it’s causing in Germany. I know a Jewish man who says his cousins in France are all planning to go to Israel because it’s no longer safe in France.
I read somewhere that the Macron gov’t did not give in until the violence of the ANTIFA types began last weekend. That is not a good incentive to reward.
ANTIFA in France is called “Black Bloc,” I think.
MikeK:
Yes, if you reward a behavior you tend to get more of it.
France said to Macron.,,
“Get off my lawn.”
And he scooted.
Bari Weiss column in the NY Times a few days ago — Europe’s Jew Hatred, and Ours: A new CNN poll reveals that one in four Europeans are anti-Semitic— in which she talks about the rising anti-Semitism in Europe being not just because of Muslims, but the growth in neo-fascist groups and anti-Semitism on the far left that presents itself as anti-Zionism and anti-racism.
There are many similarities in France familiar to us in the USA. Regionalism, urban versus rural, Constitutionalists versus open borders democracy first moveon.org, elites versus floyover, etc. Country folks will survive after the leftists burn down order into chaos.
A step too far, and there is a big reaction. The government postpones action- in this case for 6 months.
I am reminded of Allende’s Chile. In early 1973 Education Minister Jorge Tapia announced the ENU (Unified National Education). From James Whelan’s book Out of the Ashes: Life, Death & Transfiguration of Democracy in Chile 1933-1988 (p 395-396/413-414)
In a meeting with 60 top military officers, Tapia admitted that the model for ENU came from East Germany’s educational system. Which only increased military opposition to the ENU.
Allende tried to implement the ENU by presidential decree, but the comptroller general ruled the ENU had to go through Congress. There were large street demonstrations against the ENU.The Catholic church had previously been neutral to supportive about the Allende government. The ENU’s plan to impose a single nationwide curriculum resulted in the first Catholic church opposition to the Allende government.
After meeting with Cardinal Silva, Allende agreed to table the ENU pending a nationwide discussion.
Less than four months later, the Allende government was no more, in part because of a resolution the Chamber of Deputies passed by a 81-47 (63%) vote.
We shall see what happens in France in six months.
http://www.josepinera.org/articles/articles_neveragain.htm
Pinochet saved Chile, which is now the richest country in South America, and probably richer than Mexico.
But Macron’s people “have a much bigger agenda than this tax, …”
One of the differences is that Macron was public about it. I took me a while to find it, but “this tax” is 6.5 cents/liter on diesel and 2.9 cents/liter on gas. But that is just the opening salvo. There are many more tax increases planned for the future. Plus, if the oil prices go down, the tax instantly goes up to compensate; a lose-lose bargain for motorists. Because the stated goal is not just to raise money, but to force some fraction of motorists off the roads and reduce the transportation carbon footprint.
As of 2014, France had 1/2 the carbon footprint of Germany largely because 75% of France’s electricity is nuclear. Germany had a fledgling nuke power system that was a tech marvel. A Fukashima style event in Germany could have been entirely handled by the extensive robotic systems built into their plants. When Merkel sacrificed those plants on Germany’s green altar, she later said it was the worst mistake of her leadership.
Now Germany has more coal fired electricity than it did a decade or two ago, and amazingly many corporations have their own private coal power plants because the grid is less reliable, and public energy so expensive. Many little coal power plants are much less efficient than large public ones, increasing the carbon footprint.
Now, Macron’s grand green plan includes shutting down 1/3 of France’s nuke plants, in addition to the adjustable and escalating fuel taxes, in addition to much tighter emission standards (vanishingly small NOx no doubt). Merkel said she didn’t understand; what’s Macron’s excuse?
TommyJay:
One could speculate that to replace the generating capacity (from nuclear) that is now being generated by coal (an lignite?) Germany (GDR) will depend on natural gas from Russia. Just speculating here, since the wind don’t always blow when you need it. Will the greens in France (EU wink, wink, nod, nod) expect similar natural gas supplied by Russia too? Or can the French freeze in the dark like the “krauts?”
This reminds me of a comment Siggy made during one of the Sanity Squad podcasts from four or five years ago. (I know, it was more than ten years ago but let’s not dwell on the ticking clock.) It’s been a while but I remember the gist of it was that if they were pushed far enough, the Europeans will fight back in ways that repudiate the pacifistic image we have overlaid on them during recent decades. The tragedy is that all the problems we try to understand at this little corner of the internet could be addressed with much less pain if the can is not kicked down the road for years and years.
Om,
The plan I read had France increasing wind and solar/photovoltaic energy to replace the lost nukes. But as the erratic wind and solar ramps up from a small to medium fraction, the efficiency of reliable thermal generators (coal, nat. gas, nuke) gets worse. They can’t ramp power up and down efficiently on say a 1 hour time scale.
As you probably know, as much I do anyway, former chancellor of Germany Gerhard Schroder was deeply involved in tying Germany to Russian energy. See this, the section on “criticism and controversy.” Schroder signed an 11th hour energy deal right before leaving office, then immediately started taking big paychecks from Gazprom and Rosneft.
What I don’t understand is why Germany is burning substantial amounts of coal. I’d guess it’s much cheaper than nat. gas electricity. A further guess is that our (U.S.) nat. gas is very much cheaper than Russian nat. gas in Germany, since our gas powered electricity is not too expensive. Don’t tell me they’d rather save a few bucks over saving the environment !?!
What’s France going to do? Buy nat. gas from Germany, who buys it from Russia? It’s almost as though all these leaders are serving the interests of Russia. I’m sure the Marxists in the various Green parties never thought of that.
Spain ended its solar and wind programs about ten years ago but then the Socialists came back.
Yes, Spain sunk a huge portion of their economy on being the cutting edge of the new Green economy, and it cost them dearly. (At least they have some abundance of sunlight, unlike Germany.) So naturally, everyone else should repeat that mistake.
The word is “loath”, not “loathe”.
Macron has six months to convince his citizens that climate change is a real problem and that their sacrifices for the future of Gaia are worth it.
Inasmuch as the warmers have been unsuccessful in making that case to the deplorables here in the U.S., I doubt he will succeed. However, it gives him time to ramp up his forces and tactics for a final showdown in the streets.
Never underestimate the motivations of the global elites. The climate change agenda is a nifty little plan to give them complete power over the life styles of the deplorables. AGW is a big part of that because, if they can pass laws against the use of fossil fuels or make them so expensive no one can use them, it allows them to control energy use, which is the life blood of modernity. When the elite control who can have energy and how much, the world will begin to resemble the dystopian world of “The Hunger Games.”
Totalitarian systems are taxing people for the air they breathe (carbon).
Heh. And people think they live in a sci fi wonderland instead.
don’t punish people for doing things you’d rather not they do (such as drive a diesel-powered vehicle). Instead, reward people for doing what you’d like them to do (such as using renewable energy products). simple, but France doesn’t seem to get it.
I mean, look at me. I am not afraid of global warming and am a crotchety conservative yet have solar power and am buying a Tesla. I liked the federal and state incentives and now my home and car will be powered by the sun and i’ll never stop at a gas station again.
There’s nothing wrong per se with Pigou levies like carbon taxes. They’re simply a tool in the box of environmental policy and their effect is to compel consumers and producers to bear some costs currently borne by 3d parties. Since their aim is to amend relative prices, you cut put the collections in a bin and then remit them at the close of the fiscal year on a per household basis. That way, the use of them remains a feature of environmental policy and is not just the state scrounging for another revenue source. One problem with Pigou levies write now is that there is no theoretically optimal level for a given emission, so you’re just winging it in setting rates.
France’s real problem is that too much of their economy is subject to collective consumption and re-distribution. Now let’s see a government successfully scale back benefits. Ha ha.
Yes, Spain sunk a huge portion of their economy on being the cutting edge of the new Green economy,
We can look it up, but I can almost guarantee you that they didn’t ‘sink’ a huge portion of anything. The government just made some suboptimal expenditures trying to play venture capitalist. The Dept. of Energy over here had a large portfolio of outstanding loans in the energy sector at one point. Most inappropriate, but $50 bn in dubious investments in a country where commercial banks have more than $7 tn in outstanding loans isn’t going to generate an economic disaster. Spain itself has had chronically troubled labor markets for a generation (and no political will to do the necessary to fix them).
the stated goal is not just to raise money, but to force some fraction of motorists off the roads and reduce the transportation carbon footprint.
Yes and the small productive segment of the French economy recognizes the plan. France has a 35 hour work week, etc but there are French workers, especially truck drivers, who do the stuff that has to be done. The small towns are being emptied out by the policies of the central government and they are being filled back in by retired British who are moving there to escape the dysphoria of so much of Britain.
the stated goal is not just to raise money, but to force some fraction of motorists off the roads and reduce the transportation carbon footprint.
Yes and the small productive segment of the French economy recognizes the plan. France has a 35 hour work week, etc but there are French workers, especially truck drivers, who do the stuff that has to be done. The small towns are being emptied out by the policies of the central government and they are being filled back in by retired British who are moving there to escape the dysphoria of so much of Britain.
The carrot of letting people keep more of their own money works much better than the stick of excess taxation. silly French…
The impact of these French revolts on European politicians is even more important. They would be now extremely careful to impose new “green” taxes or regulations harming their voters at the pretext of saving the planet. CAGW swindle is coming apart as people do not want anymore any of this demagogy to ruin their living standards.
don’t punish people for doing things you’d rather not they do (such as drive a diesel-powered vehicle). Instead, reward people for doing what you’d like them to do
Doesn’t matter. What you’re doing is changing relative prices under the understanding that their are costs or benefits not incorporated into the market price. At least when I was a student of resource economics, no one had any idea how to calculate optimal levies on auto emissions. You knew in a general way that the optimal number was non-zero. You also knew that excises on emissions were more efficient than command-and-control regulations (depending on the distributional questions being satisfactorily answered).
They would be now extremely careful to impose new “green” taxes or regulations harming their voters at the pretext of saving the planet.
Objecting categorically to Pigou levies is a bullet in your instep.
Again, Europe’s problems are multifold: benefits too generous, an inclination by governments to hide the costs, public tantrums when attempts are made to scale back benefits (because the shell games with financing cannot be played indefinitely), rinse repeat. You also have hyperregulation of labor markets which inhibits hiring (last I checked the Table of Contents of the French labor code was > 80 pages long), fertility deficits, and bad immigration policy.
…the gist of it [Siggy’s comment] that if [Europeans] were pushed far enough, the Europeans will fight back in ways that repudiate the pacifistic image we have overlaid on them during recent decades.
MatthewM: That’s my take. I’ve been saying it for years.
It may be too late when they start fighting back, but they will.
The EU needs this tax to help fund the proposed EU army. This army is needed to defend Europe against invasion from the Chinese, Russians and the USA ( and anyone else that appears to threaten Macron). I was looking forward to the spectacle of German generals losing battles and French generals surrendering as in 1914-18 and 1939-45.