Inside Macron's pitch meeting with Wall Street

4/10/2024 12:56

        French President Emmanuel Macron has given top U.S. financiers a candid assessment of his country's financial woes, flagging the potential for looming tax increases, sources said this week, in an effort to tamp down concerns over France's gaping deficit. Macron, a former investment banker, met with more than a dozen Wall Street executives in New York during the U.N. General Assembly late last month, aiming to reassure them about France's deteriorating fiscal outlook, according to three people who heard Macron speak. In a more than one-hour meeting with 13 senior financiers and asset managers including Goldman Sachs President John Waldron and Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman, Macron offered a frank view of the French and European economies, they said. Macron spoke about the likelihood of increasing taxes to fund the country's budget, one of the participants told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity because the meeting was private. The president was also candid about France's economic
        challenges, the source said. He also touted France as a potential investment destination and discussed how to expand business from multinational companies. Macron was well acquainted with the meeting participants after seven years of holding "Choose France" summits. Those gatherings sought to shift investor perceptions of France as a dynamic, pro-business nation instead of a sclerotic, high-tax country. He met the bankers on Sept. 24 just as his new minority government was starting to thrash out a budget to address a deficit that risks topping 6% this year, fueling speculation about tax hikes. The meeting followed a smaller, but similar gathering during the Olympics in Paris this summer. Europe's economic slowdown has spurred the need to consolidate public finances through targeted, and temporary, tax increases, Macron said, according to a second person who was present at the meeting. The hikes would mark a U-turn for France, which cut taxes for big business under
        Macron. He asked investors at the meeting to not overreact to any tax increases, and said his goal was primarily to cut spending. Foreign investors own around 50% of France's overall government debt, much higher than other euro zone countries including Italy, Spain and Germany.