Emmanuel Macron will insist on limiting the excessive remuneration of executive directors if he is re-elected president, after describing as “shocking and excessive” the package of 19 million euros (15.7 million British pounds) handed to the head of the automaker Stellantis.
Macron, who is campaigning ahead of the final vote on the French presidency on April 24 against far-right candidate Marin Le Pen, told France Info radio that he supports an EU-wide ceiling on the salaries of top officials.
The multi-million pound payment handed over to CEO Carlos Tavares last year when French carmaker PSA merged with Italian-US rival Fiat Chrysler to form Stellantis, one of the world’s largest carmakers, is set to as an important issue in the elections.
Macron and Le Pen are trying to attract 7.7 million people who voted in the first round for the left-wing candidate Jean-Luc Melanchon, who described the final runoff as “a choice between two evils”.
A recent poll for France 24 found that 34% of Melenchon’s voters said they would support Macron against 30% for Le Pen, while 36% did not.
“We have to fight at European level so that the rewards are not excessive,” Macron said. “We need to set ceilings and have governance for Europe, which makes these things acceptable. If not, society will explode at any moment.
“People can’t face purchasing power problems … and then see such amounts.”
In addition to his basic salary of € 2 million, Tavares must receive € 7.5 million in performance-based remuneration, € 2.4 million in pension contributions and a € 1.7 million bonus to the success of the merger. In addition, according to Stelantis, he will receive shares worth 5.6 million euros.
In 2017, PSA chief Tavares acquired General Motors’ European operations, giving him control of several plants, including the Ellesmere Port plant in Merseyside, where her last Astra left the production line last week before switching to electric car models.
Stellantis was created in 2019 when the boards of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and Peugeot owner Groupe PSA approved a € 40 billion (£ 35 billion) merger with rivals Toyota, Daimler, GM and Volkswagen.
“These kinds of sums are astronomical,” said Macron, who was backed by 9.7 million in the first round against Le Pen’s 8.1 million.
“We have to do what we did with the minimum tax rates and the fight against tax evasion. We need to persuade our European partners to carry out a reform that will provide a framework for the remuneration of executive directors. “
Earlier this week, French government spokesman Gabriel Attal described Tavares’ remuneration as “obviously abnormal numbers”.
Le Pen, who faces Macron in the second and final rounds of the April 24 presidential election, was also drawn to the debate.
“It’s shocking, but less shocking than the others,” she said, before appearing to support the bonuses as a reward for the merger deal. “For once, he did well,” she said.
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