Economy and Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire on Thursday welcomed TotalEnergies’ profits of $6.6 billion in the third quarter, recalling that this allowed it to “pay for a discount on fuel” at the pump.
“When a French company succeeds, I think we should all be satisfied with that success and we should all be proud to have a major energy company that is French like Total,” said Bruno Le Maire on BFM Business.
The Minister recalled that the results of TotalEnergies allowed to extend until mid-November the discount at the pump on fuels, 20 cents per liter by TotalEnergies in its service stations (in addition to 30 cents by the State).
TotalEnergies reported Q3 net income of $6.6 billion on Thursday, up 43% from Q3 2021.
According to Mr. Le Maire, these results also allow TotalEnergies “to increase salaries” and “to give employees a 13th month’s pay”.
“It’s good news if they share the value in the company”, “if they lower the bill of the French”, nuanced the Minister of Public Accounts Gabriel Attal on FranceInfo radio.
“We’re going to tax them,” he added, referring to the European mechanism that should make it possible to tax refining activities in France in particular.
The Observatory of Multinationals estimates from data made available by TotalEnergies that the company should pay between 40 and 65 million dollars in taxes in France in 2022 under this mechanism, “depending on the final results and taking into account the provisions for the group’s holdings in Russia”.
“That is barely 0.2% of the global profits of TotalEnergies while France represents more than 20% of the group’s activity, 30% of its workforce and 44% of the share capital of all legal entities of the group,” says the Observatory in an article by economist Maxime Combes, published Thursday on its website.
Mr. Le Maire had warned several weeks ago that the tax on refining activities would bring in “only 200 million euros” in total.
