Natacha Polony: “Airbnb and the forty thieves”

In France, eight associate professors at the end of their career contribute as much, through their taxes, to hospitals, roads and schools, as an American multinational which is ruining an entire section of our economy. Airbnb paid 2016 euros in taxes in 92.000. However, France is its second market, after the United States. A country that welcomes 80 million tourists a year, what a potential windfall! Moreover, is it a coincidence: if tourists have returned to France, after the disaster of two years marked by the attacks, they spend less here than elsewhere. And the feeling of insecurity they feel because of the various and varied pickpockets and looters is not enough to explain the savings they make. But an apartment rented on a digital platform is so much cheaper than a few nights in a hotel overwhelmed by charges and constraints and which must pass on the cost of Urssaf and taxes to the customer's bill.

At Airbnb, on the other hand, we do not pay any charges. And very little tax. Through an invoicing system from the Irish subsidiary, the 12% commission collected on the rental never goes through France. The company does not create any jobs or wealth in France. She destroys it. And individuals who make ends meet by renting their apartment are not aware that they are creating unemployment, the consequences of which will be seen on their own payslip, through deductions, and on their tax sheet, since It will be up to them to finance the infrastructure with which Airbnb earns millions without ever returning any to the community.

Some still imagine that this economic system has anything to do with liberalism. Completely unfair competition, the destabilization of economic sectors that contribute to national wealth through jobs, know-how and the payment of their taxes, the instrumentalization of the law, the absence of all decency and predation raised to the rank of he art of living, that would have scandalized the thinkers of classical liberalism, but which seems quite acceptable to the current zealots of the deregulated economy. They try to make us believe that refusing this system, which is both unjust and destructive, would amount to advocating the Soviet collectivization of the means of production. This is to confuse the freedom to undertake with the right to plunder. It is to forget, above all, that this model does not arise from any necessity, but from political choices.

Californian capitalism, a marriage of financial deregulation and digital technology, has nothing to do with the nice collaborative utopia that relies on sharing to create a new form of economy. What is presented to us as a better use of existing capital – in this case an apartment that we do not necessarily occupy every day of the year – is based on the transformation of all human activity and all property into an opportunity for profit. What we are touted as a release of energies is only the circumvention of all the regulations put in place by the States to protect consumers.

But let's not forget an essential player in this fool's game. Faced with the scandal caused by the revelation of the derisory amount of tax paid by Airbnb, Pierre Moscovici, European Commissioner for Economic Affairs, called on the member countries of the Union to set up a "common base" for tax on companies, which would make it possible to agree on tax data, and therefore on the amount of tax that each company must pay in the country where it operates. But harmonizing corporate tax rates is out of the question. Better still, said common base is likely to preserve the exemptions enjoyed by multinationals and which allow them to pay significantly less tax than any SME. The European Commission wakes up after years of frenzied tax optimization by the American digital giants, but would still not want to annoy them too much. The destruction of European economies will be able to continue for a long time. France loses 60 to 80 billion in tax revenue per year. Not to mention the closing of hotels, the jobs destroyed, the money spent by tourists, not on overnight stays and breakfasts sold by artisans, but on low-end products bought in supermarkets. A few apartment owners, of course, will have gotten rich. This system will even have encouraged real estate speculation by allowing some to engage in rental investment. Certain districts of Paris have already been emptied, and the roommates suffer from the nuisances of strangers who are reluctant to preserve the common areas. Those who wanted to believe that the death of our industry would be compensated by the triumph of services will have to come out of their sweet dreams.

There is no other solution than to rebuild, faced with this economy of predation, a real economy, based on short circuits and rewarding the creation of value. An economy that protects against unfair competition by compensating for these distortions with active support. An economy at the service of a model of society so that society is not subject to an economy governed by predators.