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By Gregory Viscusi - Thu Mar 15 11:14:56 GMT 2012

Nicolas Sarkozy, president of France.

Nicolas Sarkozy, president of France. Photographer: Jock Fistick/Bloomberg

Frances presidential campaign has turned into a race to tax the most.

On Feb. 27, Socialist frontrunner Francois Hollande said he plans a 75 percent levy on income over 1 million euros ($1.31 million) on top of his pledge to raise the wealth tax and eliminate exemptions for overtime work. President Nicolas Sarkozy followed with a proposed tax on the worldwide revenue of large French companies and this week a levy on fiscal exiles. Both candidates want to impose a fee on financial transactions.

Unlike in the U.S., where higher levies are a vote-killer, in France, such increases win support in the polls, more so after the European debt crisis cooled economic growth, raised jobless claims to a 12-year high and the unemployment rate to about 10 percent. An Ifop poll this month showed that 61 percent of the French are in favor of Hollandes millionaire tax.

A U.S. election campaign is all about who promises to cut taxes while here its about who will tax more, Maurice Levy, chief executive officer of advertising company Publicis SA, said March 13 at a business conference in Paris.

Frances tax revenue as a proportion of gross domestic product is one the highest in the world at 43 percent in 2010, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. That compares with 36.3 percent in Germany, 25 percent in the U.S. and the OECD average of 34 percent.

The eagerness of French candidates to promise new taxes, and the positive response from voters stem at least in part from the sentiment that tax cuts at the start of Sarkozys five-year term allowed the wealthy to pay less than their fair share during the economic crisis.

Both candidates are trying to capitalize on the issue: Sarkozy by trying to dispel the perception that hes the president of the rich, and Hollande by trying to show that he can be the president of redistribution. Antonio Barroso, an analyst at Eurasia Group, said in an interview.

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New Day New Tax as Sarkozy Battles Hollande in French Campaign