Patrick Pouyanné, CEO of TotalEnergies, at the Elysée Palace in Paris, on November 28, 2024. THOMAS SAMSON/AFP
The debate over taxing the windfall profits obtained by multinational oil companies, against the backdrop of the war in the Middle East, shows no sign of abating. On the left, the idea of taxing superprofits is widely supported, and Socialist and Green MPs have submitted a bill to do so to the Assemblée Nationale. The rest of the Assemblée has been more divided on the issue.
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TotalEnergies: French PM Lecornu defends company against left's calls to tax profits
In the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) party, whereas party leader Marine Le Pen described such a tax as a "normal" measure, her second-in-command, Jordan Bardella, has adopted a more liberal stance, questioning the "priority (...) of inventing new taxes and levies." The government, meanwhile, has remained cautious. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said he had "no objection in principle" to taxing these "exceptional" profits, but stopped short of joining a call for coordinated European action on the issue launched by Germany, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Austria.
