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France no longer has the highest taxes in the EU

French taxes are famously high - but no longer the highest in Europe, after a new report saw France knocked off its top slot.

Published: 29 June 2021 17:04 CEST

France no longer has the highest taxes in the EU

Bercy, home to the French Economy and Finance Ministry. Photo: Ludovic Marin / AFP.

After leading the way in 2017 and 2018, France was overtaken by Denmark in 2019 as the European country which raises the most taxes, according to a European Commission report on the state of taxation in the EU, published on Monday.

France’s tax revenues for 2019 represented 45.5 percent of GDP, compared to Denmark’s 46.1 percent. Belgium came third at 43.6 percent, with Ireland far away in last place, raising 22.1 percent of GDP.

French tax revenues were slightly lower than in 2018, when they amounted to 46.3 percent of GDP.

Entendu ce matin sur @franceinfo : la France n'est plus la championne du monde des #impôts.
Battue par le #danemark
Après #FRASUI, une autre désillusion 😂

— JF Fiorina (@JFFiorina) June 29, 2021

Overall, France raised €1.1 trillion in taxes in 2019. For comparison, the United Kingdom only raised €852 billion.

Overall, 52.9 percent of France’s tax revenue went directly to social security funds (including healthcare) – the highest proportion of any EU member state.

A large percentage of tax revenue in France comes from social contributions paid by employers, equivalent to 10.1 percent of GDP.

Despite France losing the top spot overall, large French companies pay more taxes than anywhere else in the Bloc.

The implicit tax rate (effective average tax burden) on corporate income was 33.2 percent in 2019, far ahead of Greece in second with 24 percent.

France is also among the European countries which impose the heaviest tax burden on high earners. The top rate of income tax including surcharges is 51.5 percent for 2021, putting France in sixth place, behind Denmark, Greece, Belgium, Portugal and Sweden.

President Emmanuel Macron introduced a number of tax cuts in 2020 in response to the ‘Yellow Vest’ protest movement. Nevertheless, the report from the European Commission predicted that France will regain its place as the European country with the highest taxes in 2022.

Member comments

Anonymous - 30 June 2021 at 11:47 CEST

Perhaps not the highest tax but certainly the amount of commodities that are taxed. Such as electricity which has tax upon tax.

Become a Member to leave a comment.

Azerbaijan vehemently rejects the accusation it bears responsibility for the riots that have led to the deaths of five people and rattled the Paris government.

But it is just the latest in a litany of tensions between Paris and Baku and not the first time France has accused Azerbaijan of being behind an alleged disinformation campaign.

The riots in New Caledonia, a French territory lying between Australia and Fiji, were sparked by moves to agree a new voting law that supporters of independence from France say discriminates against the indigenous Kanak population.

Paris points to the sudden emergence of Azerbaijani flags alongside Kanak symbols in the protests, while a group linked to the Baku authorities is openly backing separatists while condemning Paris.

“This isn’t a fantasy. It’s a reality,” interior minister Gérald Darmanin told television channel France 2 when asked if Azerbaijan, China and Russia were interfering in New Caledonia.

“I regret that some of the Caledonian pro-independence leaders have made a deal with Azerbaijan. It’s indisputable,” he alleged.

But he added: “Even if there are attempts at interference… France is sovereign on its own territory, and so much the better”.

“We completely reject the baseless accusations,” Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry spokesman Ayhan Hajizadeh said.

“We refute any connection between the leaders of the struggle for freedom in Caledonia and Azerbaijan.”

In images widely shared on social media, a reportage broadcast Wednesday on the French channel TF1 showed some pro-independence supporters wearing T-shirts adorned with the Azerbaijani flag.

Tensions between Paris and Baku have grown in the wake of the 2020 war and 2023 lightning offensive that Azerbaijan waged to regain control of its breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region from ethnic Armenian separatists.

France is a traditional ally of Christian Armenia, Azerbaijan’s neighbour and historic rival, and is also home to a large Armenian diaspora.

Darmanin said Azerbaijan – led since 2003 by President Ilham Aliyev, who succeeded his father Heydar – was a “dictatorship”.

On Wednesday, the Paris government also banned social network TikTok from operating in New Caledonia.

Tiktok, whose parent company is Chinese, has been widely used by protesters. Critics fear it is being employed to spread disinformation coming from foreign countries.

Azerbaijan invited separatists from the French territories of Martinique, French Guiana, New Caledonia and French Polynesia to Baku for a conference in July 2023.

The meeting saw the creation of the “Baku Initiative Group”, whose stated aim is to support “French liberation and anti-colonialist movements”.

The group published a statement this week condemning the French parliament’s proposed change to New Caledonia’s constitution, which would allow outsiders who moved to the territory at least 10 years ago the right to vote in its elections.

Pro-independence forces say that would dilute the vote of Kanaks, who make up about 40 percent of the population.

“We stand in solidarity with our Kanak friends and support their fair struggle,” the Baku Initiative Group said.

Raphael Glucksmann, the lawmaker heading the list for the French Socialists in June’s European Parliament elections, told Public Senat television that Azerbaijan had made “attempts to interfere… for months”.

He said the underlying problem behind the unrest was a domestic dispute over election reform, not agitation fomented by “foreign actors”.

But he accused Azerbaijan of “seizing on internal problems.”

A French government source, who asked not to be named, said pro-Azerbaijani social media accounts had on Wednesday posted an edited montage purporting to show two white police officers with rifles aimed at dead Kanaks.

“It’s a pretty massive campaign, with around 4,000 posts generated by (these) accounts,” the source told AFP.

“They are reusing techniques already used during a previous smear campaign called Olympia.”

In November, France had already accused actors linked to Azerbaijan of carrying out a disinformation campaign aimed at damaging its reputation over its ability to host the Olympic Games in Paris. Baku also rejected these accusations.