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London Mayor Invites The French To Flee Tax "Tyranny"

FRANCE 24, LES ECHOS (France), GUARDIAN, EVENING STANDARD (UK), BLOOMBERG (USA)

LONDON - Are the rich and the entrepreneurs leaving France? Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, certainly hopes so.

Pointing to the 240,000 Frenchmen who currently live in his city, he invited those unhappy with the French government’s new tax scheme to move to the United Kingdom, Bloomberg reported. “Not since 1789 has there been such tyranny in France,” Johnson joked. "I am keen to welcome talented French people…" he added, "vous etes tres bienvenus!"

Boris Johnson says 75% French tax rate "worst tyranny since 1789". Worse than the Terror and Nazi occupation? Buffoon

— Pascal Jacquemain (@jacquep) October 9, 2012

The French government’s new tax scheme is to include a 75 % tax on incomes above a million euros a year, and there will be no more upper limit on the wealth tax, the ISF, which is levied not on income but on total property and assets.

Moreover, the government recently announced it would be raising the capital gains tax (which applies to sales of businesses and stock) from its current rate of 19% (33% including social charges) to more than 62%. This provoked a mass rebellion on the part of France's entrepreneurs, labeling themselves the pigeonsFrench for “suckers”, who complained that the tax would put an end to new business startups.

They argued that the uncertainty of forming a new business, with its high risk of failure, must pay off in the form of capital gains or no one will think it worthwhile to take the risk, and no new business will come to France. The government was taken by surprise by the extent of the revolt, especially online, which came from "small business entrepreneurs and internet startups, with a friendly image, who aren’t from the upper class,” wrote Dominique Seux in financial newspaper Les Echos.

The Guardian reported that Hollande’s office told Reuters, “We don't want to give the impression that we want to punish the Pigeons… We'll find a solution.” “We probably made a mistake,” the Minister of the Budget, Jérôme Cahuzac, told Libération. No changes have yet been officially announced.

Meanwhile, high-end real estate company Daniel Féau told reporters from France 24 that 400 to 500 apartments worth more than one million euros ($1.3 million) have come onto the Paris market in the past two months. “It’s like everyone is panicking,” said one manager.

A senior socialist party source told the Evening Standard,“France is now a fully Socialist country, and thus not a place where the rich can feel comfortable… they will all have to realize that they have a responsibility to the rest of society.”

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Society

Italy's Right-Wing Government Turns Up The Heat On 'Gastronationalism'

Rome has been strongly opposed to synthetic foods, insect-based flours and health warnings on alcohol, and aggressive lobbying by Giorgia Meloni's right-wing government against nutritional labeling has prompted accusations in Brussels of "gastronationalism."

Dough is run through a press to make pasta

Creation of home made pasta

Karl De Meyer et Olivier Tosseri

ROME — On March 23, the Italian Minister of Agriculture and Food Sovereignty, Francesco Lollobrigida, announced that Rome would ask UNESCO to recognize Italian cuisine as a piece of intangible cultural heritage.

On March 28, Lollobrigida, who is also Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's brother-in-law, promised that Italy would ban the production, import and marketing of food made in labs, especially artificial meat — despite the fact that there is still no official request to market it in Europe.

Days later, Italian Eurodeputy Alessandra Mussolini, granddaughter of fascist leader Benito Mussolini and member of the Forza Italia party, which is part of the governing coalition in Rome, caused a sensation in the European Parliament. On the sidelines of the plenary session, Sophia Loren's niece organized a wine tasting, under the slogan "In Vino Veritas," to show her strong opposition (and that of her government) to an Irish proposal to put health warnings on alcohol bottles. At the end of the press conference, around 11am, she showed her determination by drinking from the neck of a bottle of wine, to great applause.

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