“A tax on the global financial sector can finance development”, affirmed Bernard Kouchner and Christine Lagarde in an op-ed published in Le Monde.

The French foreign and economic ministers reiterated their desire to create an international levy on financial transactions “to finance development”. “We are not proposing a Tobin tax, whose primary objective was to regulate an excessively erratic currency market. No, the aim is to finance development without disrupting financial transactions.”

“A levy of 5 euro-cents on €1,000 would be painless, but not without consequences for the developing world: since even such an insignificant tax could yield as much as €35 billion!

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Paris looks for global levy on international financial transactions