French businesses court Marine Le Pen after taking fright at left’s policies
▻https://www.ft.com/content/e28f9753-1770-4c8c-91d8-e7bb7ed44feb
France’s corporate bosses are racing to build contacts with Marine Le Pen’s far right after recoiling from the radical tax-and-spend agenda of the rival leftwing alliance in the country’s snap parliamentary elections.
Four senior executives and bankers told the Financial Times that the left — which polls suggest is the strongest bloc vying with Le Pen — would be even worse for business than the Rassemblement National’s unfunded tax cuts and anti-immigration policies.
“The RN’s economic policies are more of a blank slate that business thinks they can help push in the right direction,” a Cac 40 corporate leader said of Le Pen’s party, which is ahead of other groupings in the run-up to the two-round vote on June 30 and July 7. “The left is not likely to water down its hardline anti-capitalist agenda.”
Another major business leader and investor in France added: “If you had told me two weeks ago that the business world would be rooting for the RN and counting [President Emmanuel] Macron out, I would not have believed it.”
