"This year again, France appears to be one of the poor performers in the European Union in terms of production taxes. Despite recent positive developments with the gradual elimination of the value-added tax (CVAE), there is still considerable room for improvement. This indicator therefore plays an important role in making these obstacles visible, which is essential for the competitiveness of our French companies," explains Lisa Thomas-Darbois, head of the Economy and State Action Department at the Institut Montaigne and author of the report.

“Thanks to its comparative and evolutionary dimension based on the data and analyses of the previous 2022 barometer, this second edition stands out through more precise indicators,” says Elena Aubrée, Partner at Mazars Société d'Avocats.

• Of the 11 countries studied, 9 have seen a decrease in the share of their production taxes, which demonstrates a shared desire to bolster the competitiveness of European companies.
• Only Italy and Poland are experiencing an increase in the level of their production taxes due, respectively, to the Covid-19 related health crisis and of taxes on activities with a negative impact on the environment.
• France in particular is experiencing a remarkable drop: the share of its production taxes will have fallen by nearly 0.6 GDP points between 2020 and 2021, notably due to the decrease in CVAE revenues over this same period.

• Sweden remains the country with the highest share of production taxes (with 9.9% of GDP),which is however explained by its role in financing the Swedish social system.
• Despite a visible decrease in the weight of production taxes, France is still among the "poor performers" of the European Union, as its production taxes represent 3.8% of its GDP, well above the average of the countries studied, estimated at 2.5% of GDP. 
• Moreover, France has a total amount of €95 billion in production taxes, nearly 4 times higher than Germany (€25 billion), despite German GDP being nearly 40% higher than ours.