The request is even urgent. Compiled in a hurry, almost angrily, so as not to have to pay even a cent more than necessary in the coffers of mother France. Second Le Figaro, the phenomenon of fiscal exile, inaugurated amidst a thousand controversies first by Bernard Arnault (owner of Lvmh, whose position is still stalled) and then by the actor Gérard Depardieu, who has already put the his super home in the center of Paris is catching on like wildfire: in fact, to date, there are 500 citizens from beyond the Alps on the waiting list to obtain Belgian nationality.
A sudden increase of 20% since last September, when President Hollande, as promised during the election campaign, presented a budget law to the Council of Ministers which in Italy we would define as "tears and blood": the tax burden in France will rise from 44,9% of GDP in 2012 to 46,3% in 2013 and will only drop from 2016 (in Italy it was 42,5% in 2011 but is expected to exceed 45% in 2012 and reach 45,4% in 2013). But most of all, triggering the flight of the rich is the Robin Hood-style property tax that taxes incomes over one million and 75 thousand euros at 300%.
And so the transalpine Scrooges run (or have already run) for cover: to turn their backs on the Eiffel Tower, in addition to Depardieu and well before him, there are also the stars of music Charles Aznavour and Johnny Hallyday (the French Vasco Rossi), and the sex symbol Alain Delon, all three residing in Switzerland; while the well-known intellectual Paul-Loup Sulitzer is also heading towards Brussels.
There are also those who, however, have chosen to stay, despite everything: among them the television star Michel Sardou and the pop icon of tennis (and then of music, theatre, politics) Yannick Noah. Just him, the last French winner of a Grand Slam tournament on Roland Garros' home ground, who emigrated to Switzerland from '90 to '93 only to regret it and return. "It seems natural to me - declared the national Yannick - that, in a moment like this, the greatest efforts belong to those who have been luckier in life". Wise words to say the least, and also shared by the well-known writer Michel Houellebecq, who even chose this historical period to rejoin France, after having lived 10 years in Ireland and one in Spain.
