France’s conservative prime minister Edouard Philippe called on socialist François Hollande to “show some humility” after the former head of state said that the centrist government’s tax policy would deepen the divide between the rich and the poor.
Mr Hollande, who has remained largely tight-lipped about the government’s reform agenda since his successor Emmanuel Macron was voted into power in May, slammed his former protégé’s fiscal policy during a speech at the World Knowledge Forum in Seoul earlier this week.
The former head of state warned that cutting back on the country’s wealth tax would “help the rich get richer while they sleep” and criticised the government’s attempt to “introduce a lower tax regime for the rich and a higher one for the more modest and middle classes”.
But while Mr Macron has failed to respond to the biting comments, Mr Philippe was quick to hit back at the jibe.
He said: “I heard that (Mr Hollande) made some rather bitter and cutting remarks about our fiscal policy… He’s allowed to criticise (the government), but he could have shown some humility.
“Because the people openly criticising the policies we’re putting in place to fix the country are in fact partly responsible for the country’s economic malaise.
“I’m not just talking about the former president. I’m also talking about former ministers, including (former finance minister) Michel Sapin and (former budget minister) Christian Eckert, who think they have the right to reprimand their successors, but yet refuse to own up to their past mistakes.”
Mr Macron on Sunday brushed off opponents’ criticisms that his economic policies favour the rich, adding that scrapping the controversial wealth tax championed by Mr Hollande would encourage the wealthy to stay in France and invest.