Medef Threatens “Major Employer Mobilization” if Corporate Taxes Increase

LETS BLOCK EVERYTHING: The president of Medef, Patrick Martin, warned this Saturday that a “major employer mobilization” would be organized if business taxes were increased

The boss of Medef, Patrick Martin, warned on Saturday that a “major employer mobilization” would be organized if business taxes were increased, as part of the 2026 budget, and denounced “a form of spoliation” in the Zucman tax demanded by the left.

“It is urgent to release the handbrake”

“Businesses cannot bear new taxes or additional tax increases. On the contrary, it is even urgent to release the handbrake to revive investment”, declared the leader of the leading French employers’ organization in a published interview on the website of Parisian.

“If taxes increase, there will be a major employer mobilization”, “beyond Medef”, he added, reporting that Medef members are “very worried”.

“We will not take to the streets. We will bring together massively, as was the case in the past, in the form of a meeting, thousands of business leaders of all profiles, in terms of size, sector of activity, territorial origin to make it clear that we refuse to be the adjustment variable for policies which seem to us to be contrary to the smooth running of the’economy and in the interest of the country, in which we play an important role, he explained.

“The most taxed in the OECD”

Patrick Martin stressed that French companies were “the most taxed among the countries of the’OECD, after deduction of the aid they receive, with “13 billion euros in additional levies in 2025”. In return, he deplores that companies have not seen the promise of a reduction in the CVAE, a production tax, come to fruition.

Among the red lines of the big boss, who was received Friday evening by the new Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornuin particular, there is a tax on very high assets called “Zucman” (named after the economist Gabriel Zucman), demanded by the left.

The Zucman tax, “a form of dispossession”

“It would be a terrible obstacle to investment for businesses”, he protested. The Zucman tax integrates the work tool into the calculation of assets, even though the ISF did not do so. For certain companies – tech in particular – which are expensive but do not yet produce results or do not distribute dividends, introducing this tax would even be a form of spoliation and would condemn them to sale. “