Voltaire found refuge in England; so did Karl Marx and General de Gaulle. Now, the British Prime Minister David Cameron has invited French businesses that want to save their companies from rising taxes to relocate to Britain.
Figaro (June 19) is greatly displeased. “President François Hollande should bolster competitiveness at home instead of chasing businesses out of the country with a disastrous tax cocktail…. He prides himself on having placed growth and jobs at the centre of his project. But he has forgotten one basic rule: it is the businesses, and they alone, that will allow him to achieve his goal.”
Eric Koch’s new book, The Golden Years: Five Stories, was launched on Saturday, March 16. The book is available from the 
States (or provinces) offering lower tax rates to attract investment are no novelty. What business person ever thought that taxes were not too high? (I know, Warren Buffet, but he was talking about personal tax rates.) Figaro, as a business-friendly paper, is taking the side of the would-be exiles, and not of the government that is alleged to be persecuting them by making them pay for the social benefits of the country where they are located.
Competing as tax havens is a less-than-zero sum game for the collectivity.