France's Wealthy Fear Royal Will Raise Taxes

The New York Sun reports:

Business leaders in France are warning of an exodus of the country's top-flight taxpayers to London and other foreign capitals if Segolene Royal is elected president in May.

French industry fears that the Socialist Party candidate plans to raise taxes for high earners and big companies, after she shocked them with hard-left comments last week.

There are concerns that a significant body of industry captains will leave France as they did when the socialist Francois Mitterrand became president in 1981.

"It's a cold shower. We were hoping for a French Tony Blair, and we see that the Socialist Party cannot free itself from the ideological shackles of the far-left," said Geoffroy Roux de Bezieux, president of Croissance Plus, a federation of high-growth entrepreneurs.

Socialism means high costs and decline.