France is the top-taxed country in the European Union and Ireland the lowest, according to the latest figures released on Wednesday by the bloc's statistics office Eurostat. The tax-to-GDP ratio of France, calculated on the sum of taxes and net social contributions, was 48.4 percent in 2018, putting it ahead of Belgium on 47.2 percent and Denmark on 45.9 percent. President Emmanuel Macron responded to the violent protests by announcing measures to cut billions of euros of taxes to boost workers' spending power. France is the country in the developed world that spends the most on social spending relative to the size of its economy. In neighbouring Germany social spending is just 25 percent of GDP, while in the US it makes up just 19 percent.

Source: The Local October 31, 2019 07:18 UTC