Christopher Dembik (Saxo Bank): "Marine le Pen has normalized, at least from an economic point of view".

Guest of Jean-Paul Chapel on Tuesday, Christopher Dembik, economist at Saxo Bank, came to address, on the gray sofa of Franceinfo, the programmatic differences of the two presidential candidates qualified for the second round. He underlines changes compared to 2017, in particular for Marine Le Pen's project: "It's day and night, there were elements that were very anxiety-provoking, the Frexit (…) that disappeared" . The economist of Saxo Bank remarks that it has on the other hand many measurements on the purchasing power: "His campaign slogan, from the economic point of view, is also to give money back to the French".

He cites the far-right candidate's measures on this issue: 0% VAT on basic necessities, a reduction in VAT on energy products (to 5.5%) as well as a 10% salary increase. For the latter, he warns that not all companies will be able to do so: "Undeniably, not all companies are able to increase wages by 10%. He also mentions Marine Le Pen's proposal concerning the abolition of income tax for those under 30, which he describes as unprecedented: "A single European country that has put in place this type of measure is Poland in 2019 which exempted people under 26 from income tax". If he affirms that the proposal can be interesting, he nevertheless considers it expensive and wishes to qualify its effectiveness: "Be careful, all the same, you should know that there are many young people who do not pay taxes on Income". On the side of the outgoing President, "it is much less dense" according to him. Emmanuel Macron proposes a doubling of his bonus up to 6,000 euros, but, according to Christopher Dembik, as with the 10% increase in Marine Le Pen's salaries, this is only an incentive and will mainly concern the big companies.

The economist also returned to the pension reform proposals of the two candidates: "For Emmanuel Macron, even if we see that there were adjustments yesterday, what is written is to push back the retirement age at 65 instead of 62". "On the side of Marine Le Pen, there have also been a lot of movements" he remarks. He explains that Marine Le Pen has notably softened the lowering of her pension reform at age 60: "If you entered the labor market between the ages of 17 and 20, then you can claim a retirement before age 60, otherwise 62 years old". This difference causes strong divergences in the estimate of the cost of the programs: "Marine Le Pen, it is about three times more expensive than the program of Emmanuel Macron, but there again, it remains large orders of magnitude" . In any case, there would be no panic on the markets after the qualification of the candidate of the Rassemblement National in the second round: "There is almost no reaction from the financial markets, Marine le Pen has normalized, at least from an economic point of view.