A nascent digital war between Trump and Macron …

From Paris

Still the shadow of the war. Europe and the United States, with France on the front line, are again on the brink of a clash that erupted after the French government decided to implement a strategy against the tax scheme of large Internet groups. This is a tax known as "Google rate" or "GAFA rate" which applies a 3% tax to the companies that make up the GAFA Group: Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple. These companies are universal predators of tax systems in the countries where they operate. A meeting called "tax optimization" allows them to free themselves from the tax obligations of the countries where they are implemented. France has for a long time led this initiative and has concretized it once: on July 11, Parliament adopted this rate.

The furious Sir who presides over the fate of the United States immediately left with his Twitter sword to threaten France with retaliation. The US President tweeted this text: "We will announce a substantial interaction shortly after the stupidity of Emmanuel Macron. I've always said that American wine was better than French wine. Trump surely does not know much about wines. In any event, the president ordered Secretary of Foreign Trade, Robert Lighthizer, to badess the damage that this tax could entail for his businesses. The US president has made it clear that he can punish French imports of products such as wine or the auto sector. The "301" investigation is the same one that triggered the tariff war with China.

Before France voted the rate, Washington was trying to dissuade Paris from applying this tax by rhetoric inspired by the best style of commercial guerrilla warfare. In June, Robert Lighthizer said the tax "was intended to disproportionately affect US companies" and that, therefore, Washington should "take drastic action." The French Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, responded roughly: "France is a sovereign state that decides sovereignty of its tax provisions." Paris has long led the initiative of a tax that should have been applied by all the countries of the European Union. However, the reluctance of Ireland, Sweden, Denmark and Finland have prevented the unification of Europe. The GAFA rate also applies to companies such as Meetic, Airbnb and Instagram and is expected to provide the state with about 400 million euros in 2019 and 650 in 2020. The idea is that the tax will be paid in the future. applies to companies with a digital business turnover of over € 750 million worldwide and, from there, receives a tax of 3% of the turnover generated in France, particularly with regard to advertising in France. line developed through profiles and sales of data (all stolen). by these companies to their users).

French President Emmanuel Macron announced the imposition of this tax end 2018, while the yellow jackets crisis was in full swing. The purpose of the tax was to help finance the economic and social emergency measures (10 billion euros) adopted in the midst of crisis.

The question of this rate has always aroused strong divisions in the world and amply demonstrated the sidewalk that some countries are demonstrating before US power and its retaliatory mechanisms. At the G20 summit held in Japan in early June, the rate was part of the negotiations as a means of "putting social justice into international taxation" (Bruno Le Maire). For the moment, France is sailing alone in these sovereign waters. The United States has laws such as the Trade Act that allows them to impose tariffs in the event that a country adopts measures that are considered "disproportionate" or "unfair" that could harm the operations of its global corporations .

French officials believe that capitalism, as it is modeled today with its mixture of destruction of natural resources and abysmal tax disparities "between digital companies and others is in the process of destruction" (Bruno Le Maire) . Day after day, the threats rose. Trumpism has highlighted his martial art of international relations. Judd Deere, one of the White House spokesmen, said a few days ago that "the Trump administration would not sit idly by."

Obey or die is the word of the White House. However, negotiations are underway to harmonize this tax. This would be done through a system developed by the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development), the "Global GAFA", capable of containing rules acceptable to all States (127) scheduled for 2020. French initiative is a small step but highly symbolic and with great political courage in a context where digital companies earn billions of dollars, do not pay taxes and also base their fortune on mbadive data theft, profiling and breach of trust Users have filed in new technologies. For the world's people plundered by these digital kleptomaniacs disguised as modern, the stakes are enormous. Quentin Parrinello, spokesman for Oxfam France, recently recalled that "multinationals transfer up to 40% of their profits abroad to tax havens. Current tax rules do not allow these multinationals to pay a fair share of taxes. "In 2015, in France, these companies avoided taxes amounting to 118 billion euros.

The confrontation that has opened now is delicate but, for once, pioneering and necessary. Although modest, the French GAFA rate seeks to break the wall and carry out negotiations for a globalized tax harmonization and applied to digital giants not only advance, but also gain members. After the failure of the kissing diplomacy taken by Emmanuel Macron after the election of Donald Trump, the hour of clear and badumed antagonisms seems to be the next step. Like modern conflicts, the war will be digital.

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