Macron calls for cap on ‘shocking’ exec pay as French president faces election battle with Le Pen
Emmanuel Macron has called for a cap on blockbuster executive pay, in his campaign to be re-elected president of France.
Macron said a €19m pay packet for the boss of carmarker Stellantis was “shocking and excessive,” as he makes his case in the run-up to the final vote for the French presidency.
The politician is campaigning in the lead up to 24 April, where he will take on far-right candidate Marine Le Pen.
The duo are battling for the votes of a cohort of 7.7m people who voted in the first round for left-wing figure Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
Speaking to France Info radio, Macron said he would back an EU-wide cap on top bosses’ pay after Stellantis chief executive Carlos Tavares received a multi-million payout.
He added: “At some stage we have to lay out ceilings and bring in a governance structure at European level that makes things acceptable, otherwise at one point society will explode. People can’t be struggling with the high cost of living and see these kinds of sums.”
On the same topic, Le Pen told BFM TV the pay package was “shocking”. She said: “It’s even more shocking when it’s bosses of companies that have run into trouble. That happens quite a lot.”
Earlier this month, CityA.M. reported that the London Stock Exchange chief called for a boost for bosses’ pay, in order to make the City an attractive location for top talent.
Julia Hoggett told the Innovate Finance Global Summit the UK needed to have a “grown up conversation” about the remuneration of executives if it wanted to lure the best companies to trade in the UK.
“The reality is that if we want the best companies to start here, scale here and grow there and stay here, then we need to be able to make sure that we can reward the best people,” she said.
“And that that becomes part of celebrating and understanding the value of the company and having proper grown up conversations about what remuneration is, but also the alignment of incentives.”