Eric Lombard said the measure would be part of efforts to find €40 billion next year, mainly from savings, to bring the public deficit to 4.6% of GDP in 2026.

Lombard said tens of thousands of French high earners would have to pay more each year as the country battles a debt mountain that has worried markets and ratings agencies.

Individuls earning more than €250,000 a year and couples with a joint income of more than €500,000 will this year pay a minimum 20% income tax.

The government said last year that the special “contribution” would be temporary.

But Lombard told France’s BFMTV: “I hope that this contribution will be lasting”, adding that it had brought in two billion euros (US$2.27 billion) for 2024.

His ministry had started work to “verify that the mechanisms which allow the reduction” of taxes for the wealthiest “work in a more equitable manner”, he added.

A special tax on major companies that brought in eight billion euros would not be repeated, said Lombard.

“On the other hand, the two billion contribution from the high-revenue earners… we want to work on this, either maintain it or improve it,” he said.

It was “a question of financial resources – two billion is a lot – and a question of fairness. We are asking a big effort from everyone,” said the minister, who insisted it would only be a tax on revenues.

Lombard’s office told AFP that the aim of the new measure would be “to combat tax over-optimisation”.

France is “on budget alert,” Mr. Lombard told BFMTV, blaming the country’s “cumulative deficits.”

The €40 billion cut in spending would focus “mainly” on “savings”, he added, but “it could also be an increase in revenues linked to growth”.

France’s debt rose by €202.7 billion to €3.3 trillion (US$3.55 trillion) last year, accounting for 113% of GDP, according to the official statistics agency and Lombard has acknowledged that this was a threat to France’s financial stability.