French left-wing alliance unveils budget plan

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00:00Well the far right national rally remains on top of the latest polls here in France. It would be

00:05the first right force, a far right force, to lead a French government since the Nazi occupation.

00:11Snap legislative elections less than 10 days away. The party is comfortably ahead of the

00:17left-wing alliance called the New Popular Front. The New Popular Front has been holding a press

00:23conference in downtown Paris. Our reporter Claire Paquelin attending that and we can speak to her

00:29now. Hello to you Claire. What's in the New Popular Front's manifesto when it comes to their

00:36economic policies? Well I'm going to speak to you in a quiet voice Will because the press

00:43conference is actually still going on just behind me. We have been getting more details coming out

00:49of that manifesto. What's very clear to see is that this left-wing New Popular Front wants a

00:55total break with the economic policies of Emmanuel Macron. Of course those being argued for by his

01:03Prime Minister Gabriel Attal. Many of those economic policies have revolved around reducing

01:10taxes for French people. Now the New Popular Front says it wants tax justice. It wants an end

01:16to what it calls the laissez-faire, the sit back and let it happen economic policies of Emmanuel

01:22Macron. They say those are Emmanuel Macron and his Prime Minister's economic policies. It wants

01:27an end to them. It wants tax increases particularly on the wealthy as well as big businesses and it

01:33says that targeted tax increases would allow more investment in public spending in schools

01:39and healthcare and universities and environmental policies. It also says wages need to go up.

01:45It wants to increase the minimum wage by 14 percent. It wants to increase wages for civil

01:51servants as well. It argues that increasing wages will allow people to spend more which of course

01:56will help businesses and improve the economy across the spectrum. This of course coming in the

02:03context of heavy criticism on the New Popular Front from its political opponents who have been

02:10saying that its economic manifesto is unworkable and just selling pipe dreams, fairy tales to

02:17French people. This press conference is really the Popular Front's attempt to say no no we know

02:23what we're doing. We've invited three economists here to this press conference and they all say

02:27that our economic policies will work. Tax justice, a total break, those are ambitious programs.

02:36So what does the New Popular Front say in terms of how it could finance it? What details did it provide?

02:41So the details that it's providing, first of all the big argument it's saying is it's really saying

02:50Emmanuel Macron and his prime minister Gabriel Attal have talked up the successes of the last

02:55seven years we've had Emmanuel Macron as president of France and this left-wing New Popular Front

03:01is saying hold on that's exaggerated. Those successes are totally exaggerated. They say that

03:08there's been more inequalities in the last seven years, that the extra investment in France has

03:14actually not been as big as the government likes to make out, that the attempts to French growth

03:20it says in the last few years has at times been below that of the EU average. So it's really

03:25trying to counter the arguments that we saw the prime minister give yesterday. Gabriel Attal as he

03:30was laying out his manifesto he was saying look at all the great things we've done in the last

03:34seven years. We've reduced unemployment. We managed to get France through the Covid crisis and

03:40keeping small and big businesses afloat. This left-wing New Popular Alliance is saying hold on

03:45the government is selling you this idea of this fantastic success it's had in the last few years

03:50but our program will actually really bring about change and we will find the way to spread wealth

03:56better in France. One of the arguments we just saw in the room was that French people according to

04:02the left-wing New Popular Front are very attached to this economic model of solidarity. So around a

04:08third of the country's wealth being spread out among the country and largely in public services.

04:14The New Popular Front says it wants to protect that and argues that Emmanuel Macron's government

04:19has damaged that and made it less effective particularly for those who are lower earners.

04:26So we'll see. This is one of the manifesto policies that we're seeing from the left-wing

04:30Popular Front but really their aim is to try to show that their policies are workable if their

04:37candidates were to win the most number of seats in the parliamentary elections and therefore if they

04:41do that would mean that they would be able to nominate or certainly the next Prime Minister of France.

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