Immigration, Europe and taxes: Bardella's programme for governing France

As prime minister, unable to intervene at the European level, Bardella proposed lowering electricity tariffs, reducing VAT on gas, diesel and fuels in general. The idea - also disruptive for the EU's resilience - of a 'French price for electricity', which would have to remain high for exports, was abandoned. Tax cuts would have a strong impact on already strained public accounts - Standard & Poors' downgraded France for failing to meet its 2023 deficit commitments. In Rn's European programme, the lowering of VAT from 20 per cent to 5.5 per cent was to be financed by a reduction of the contribution to the EU, which was unworkable.

It is no coincidence that in the official programme, which is almost laconic compared to the one for the Europeans, another measure that Bardella referred to in the first hours after the dissolution of the Assemblée does not appear: the reduction of VAT on all essential goods, which, as soon as the official campaign began, was postponed 'to a later date'. Similarly, the pension counter-reform, which is evoked à la carte, is no longer a priority: in some cases it only concerns long working careers, in others it entails the return of the reference retirement age to 62 (if not 60). In any case, it will not happen immediately.

Security plans to 'end judicial laxity towards thugs and criminals'. It is not clear what this is about. The increase in the staffing of courts, tribunals and police has already been decided by Macronian governments. The formula used seems to suggest that the entire judicial policy will take an authoritarian twist, which will, however, have to clash with the positions of the president and, above all, the jurisprudence of the Conseil Constitutionnel.
In other circumstances, Rn has made it clear that he wants to reduce alternative measures, build new prisons (today overcrowding has reached 125%) and that he wants to 'open up' the judiciary by doubling the number of magistrates, a measure that alone would cost - according to the Ministry of Justice - 1.2 billion a year, plus 1.3 billion for training the 10,000 additional judges.

The anti-immigration policies include the drastic reduction of 'legal and illegal' immigration and the deportation of foreign criminals. There is nothing more, unlike the European programme, about the creation of a 'double border', French and European, against migrants, which would have meant - like other Rn proposals - the very break-up of the Union. In 2022, 11,406 people were expelled from France, of whom 7,214 were 'forced' and 4,686 related to 'delinquents', against 134,280 orders to leave the territory issued, for which, in 20-30% of cases, it is impossible to identify the identity and origin of the expelled persons. Macron has already passed a law with the aim of increasing the number of expulsions executed to 100%, but the prefectures are already overloaded with work and each forced execution costs an average of EUR 4,414.

Very vague indications are also given to agriculture and health, two topics that are very much felt in France. Agriculture is very much affected by European policies and Bardella promises the development of 'short supply chains' - what remains of the European promise to add French aid to European aid - and the fight against unfair competition. There is no more talk of the 'Let's eat French' law to facilitate access to public markets for national companies. On the désert médicaux, which has been troubling the provinces for dozens of years, the formula is just as vague: 'Support public hospitals and ensure the supply of medicines'. Nothing to improve healthcare in the smaller centres (a problem on which all previous governments have clashed).

In a view - shared by the radical right - of trickle-down, the RN proposes the simplification of the 'abusive regulations' that burden businesses, to which families are attached. There is never any mention of greater competition, which alone could stimulate economic activity: it is a protected capitalism that the right wing is aiming for. The proposal for a tax on financial transactions has also disappeared from the programme.

Similarly, within the framework of 'common sense economics', the RN proposes to 'lower the costs of immigration', a formula behind which is hidden the reduction of social services to immigrants (family allowances reserved for the French, limited solidarity income) and rules that impose the application for asylum in the consulates of the countries of departure. According to Bardella, immigration costs 40 billion a year, to their evidently the taxes paid by immigrants, but the calculation is simply impossible and the many estimates (ranging from 2 to 50 billion) depend on the definition of immigrant and the methodologies used.

Bardella also wants to combat 'major social and tax fraud', i.e. tax and social security evasion. Valued at between EUR 80 and 100 billion, this phenomenon has been the subject of much attention by Macronian governments, which have recovered EUR 16.4 billion in 2023 (of which EUR 15.2 billion in tax evasion) and EUR 15.2 billion in 2023 (EUR 14.6 billion in tax evasion).

The 'classic' themes of the radical, sovereignist right - but sovereigntyism, in France, crosses all political forces - is the promise to 'make the French respect themselves'. Defending France's sovereignty and interests in Europe. A theme that has much caught the attention of a part of the electorate but that sounds a bit paradoxical in one of the leading countries, for better or worse, of the European Union.

The turning point is clear: faced with the prospect of becoming a governmental force, even in cohabitation with the president of the republic, and having to come to terms with the concrete resources at its disposal - never infinite - the Rassemblement national has kept the symbolic aspects of its programme high, but not too high, but has scaled down its ambitions, trying to curb the expectations of the voters. "You cannot compare a presidential programme and a legislative programme in view of a cohabitation," Bardella told the France2 TV network. Governing, in short, will not be easy and Rn knows it.