Post-COVID inequalities: What should be done in France?

The COVID crisis and the economic policies implemented to respond to the crisis will give rise to major inequalities, in France as in other countries, between: On the one hand, groups of economic agents severely affected by the crisis: temporary and intermittent workers, holders of short-term employment contracts, self-employed and craftsmen, employees in sectors in lasting difficulty; On the other hand, those who will benefit from wealth accumulation, thanks to the rise in the prices of financial and real estate assets due to the highly expansionary monetary policies. There are many calls for this inequality to be corrected, but how? Taxing wealth or dividends more heavily, which is often suggested, leads to the risk of another offshoring of capital, whereas the 2018 reforms brought France back into the average in terms of the taxation of capital. It would also show significant tax instability in France; Rather than further increasing the scale of the redistributive policies, and therefore the tax burden, it would be better to be able to reduce primary income inequality, before redistributive policies. In the long term, this requires structural policies (improving skills, raising the employment rate); but in the short term, there are few measures available to change primary income inequality; In order to achieve a short-term result, there remains the possibility of implementing a targeted income support policy, for example a universal income for the most vulnerable categories (young people, holders of short-term employment contracts, intermittent workers, the small self-employed, etc.).