16 French regional councils involved in the fight against tax havens

From Mathilde Dupre at CCFD in Paris:

One year after the adoption by the regional council of Paris of a resolution on banks’ country by country transparency, 16 French regions are now taking concrete action against tax havens.

This is a result of the 'Stop Tax Havens' campaign, launched in September 2009 by CCFD-Terre Solidaire, Oxfam France, ATTAC, some French Trade Unions (CGT, CFDT, SNUI, Solidaires) and the French platform against tax havens.

Template letters were produced in order to encourage activists to write to their regional representatives to get them involved in this campaign. And we have also been very active during the regional elections in spring 2010 to present our proposals to all candidates.

We are now working closely with the regional councils to help them implement these measures of transparency. Nine of them have been asking their financial partners to provide country by country disclosure of information such as: name and number of subsidiaries, numbers of staff employed, profits and amounts of taxes paid. These data should normally by provided 6 months after the publication of their annual reports.

So we hope to have more information to share with you in the coming months...