Given the UK, Belgium or Switzerland, the exiled French tax is a godsend. Or rather a client to conquer. On this lucrative market, the election of Francois Hollande whets the appetite. Two measures of the new president – ISF and heavier taxation to 75% of revenues in excess of 1 million euros – may scare away more French taxpayers. The British intend to benefit and say it bluntly. "I think a number of terrible French will want to come to London", welcomed Iain Duncan Smith, the British Secretary of State for Labour, just before the victory of Francois Hollande. The English press is full of testimonials from real estate agents London noting an influx of French.

In fact, in France, tax lawyers perceive an increase of candidates for exile. "I treated a dozen applications for three months against six to eight per year once," says Corinne Dadi, a lawyer with Stehlin & Associés. Two hold the rope destinations: the United Kingdom and Switzerland. The two countries have for them the absence of ISF and tax regimes for foreigners: package negotiated with the IRS and soldant all taxes, Bern, and exemption of income not repatriated to Britain, to London . "Both countries outside the euro area, which reassures those who doubt the future of the single currency," says Marc Vaslin, associate lawyer at Scotto & Associates. Indeed, the banks of the Thames and Lake Geneva are not really competitors. Would not that because the beneficiaries of the Swiss tax package should not work in the country. "London is a cosmopolitan city for working executives. Those who go to Switzerland are rather retirees who enjoy the climate and security, "says Christophe Chaillet, director of engineering heritage HSBC France.

Swiss Secrecy

Especially, unlike the English, the Swiss authorities are playing the card of discretion. The government is doing everything for the country to get rid of the label of tax haven payday advance. In addition, a portion of the population Helvetian, supported by the left, opposed the package. Reason: local citizens pay, themselves, suffer heavy taxes and the housing boom caused by tax exiles. The canton of Zurich has abandoned the system of lump sum taxation, and a petition to that effect circulated in Geneva. "This petition does not certainly result. But the trend is upward packages to avoid becoming too unpopular and are removed, "said Marc Vaslin. Not enough, however, lose its attractiveness to Switzerland. "The country has sound public finances, which is reassuring for the long term," said Corinne Dadi. The fact that the British government takes a liberal policy is also an appreciated.

In contrast, Belgium, heavily in debt (public debt reached 98% of GDP), has now less popular among the candidates for the tax exile. "My clients are concerned Belgian tax increases," says Corinne Dadi. "I would not be surprised that the gains of less than five years end up being taxed. But the exemption of capital gains is the main attraction of this country, especially for those selling their businesses, "adds Marc Vaslin. As for Spain, it came out the exiles from radar screens, due to recovery of the ISF and economy in crisis.

Anyway, the decision to leave France is often painful. This is why lawyers are also working on schemes that will allow their French customers not to be too adversely affected by future tax measures.

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The "Spring of shareholders" in the City made a victim. Andrew Moss, head of the British insurer Aviva, resigned Tuesday after suffering a historic setback against his compensation during the general assembly of the firm last week. He might himself have abandoned a planned increase of 4.6% of annual salary of 960,000 pounds (1.2 million), shareholders with 54% disavowed his remuneration package. Taking note of this humiliation, he chose to retire to try to appease the revolt. Aviva's action was immediately flown more than 5% at the London Stock Exchange.

The fat cats ("fat cats"), as they are called here, hug the walls in the European capital of finance. For months, wages at six or seven zeros and their bonuses are exponential in the hot seat. Shareholder activism, biased against remuneration unrelated to performance in crisis, the disapproval of public opinion and government voluntarism in this area combine to send the message to the bosses Taking arrived.

In the same day on Tuesday, the Chief of the bookmaker William Hill, Ralph Topping, has narrowly escaped facing a turbulent AG which voted 49.8% against the salary increase of 8.3% and a bonus of 1.2 million pounds. A small carrier angrily denounced "the feast of the last chance for CEOs who try to take as much as possible while there is still time."  

Last week, Sly Bailey, the leader of the newspaper group Trinity Mirror, has also resigned rather than having to face this Thursday the shareholder revolt over his salary of 1.7 million pounds, while the action of the company lost 90% of its value since she took control.

Bill

Friday, it was the turn of the leaders of energy giant Centrica to face the challenge of a package of 4.3 million pounds intended for his boss, Sam Laidlaw. This agitation is not the fact of radical activist shareholders. Large institutional investors now lead the protest. 32% of those of Barclays Bank have opposed or abstained on the 17 million pounds of CEO Bob Diamond and 2.1 billion of bonuses distributed in the house, three times the amount of dividends paid.

"The shareholders have lost patience exasperated, says Sarah Wilson, leader of the association of small shareholders Manifest. This is not a political movement but the requirement for better business performance. The occupation movement of the London Stock Exchange has legitimized the need for state regulation since the boards were not able to regulate itself. "

A bill will be presented precisely this Wednesday's Speech from the Throne. One of its most controversial provisions, however, may be abandoned: it planned to require the approval of compensation plans for a three-fourths majority of shareholders. But the law should make the vote binding general meetings so far merely advisory.

Meanwhile, the "Spring of the shareholders' only budding. The association of retired FairPensions has launched a campaign for all retirees, widows Scottish kind, make their voices heard against excessive compensation. English executive salaries jumped 49% in one year.

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History does not put all your eggs in one basket, the agricultural subsidiary of Charles Beigbeder, AgroGeneration, just move up a gear in Argentina. The company created a joint venture with a local partner, the group La Suerte Agro, belonging to the family Lacau, whose roots lie in the Beam. It is present since 1880 in the agricultural sector in Argentina.

The partnership covers the operation of 14,000 hectares of GM crops: wheat, soybeans and corn. "The first risk is of a farmer's climatic hazard, said Charles Vilgrain, CEO of AgroGeneration. The best way to protect yourself is to be present in the northern hemisphere and southern hemisphere with a harvest every six months. Not to mention that it also divides the political risk. "

The partner brings AgroGeneration Argentine land, the French entrepreneur, his expertise in the development of farmland. Already present in Ukraine, the group, which cultivates 50,000 hectares, is located in the upper range of yields published by other international actors, for example with 4 tons per hectare for wheat and 1.8 tonnes for the rapeseed.

As in Argentina, the company does not own the land it operates in Ukraine. "This is a less capital-intensive investment," says Charles Vilgrain. Thus, to 2,000 euros on average per hectare of land quality in Ukraine, AgroGeneration should have spent 100 million euros to get their hands on the land he tills. The company preferred to hire them. Result, it quickly became profitable. In 2011 it produced nearly 164,000 tons of grain for a turnover of more than 23 million euros and a net profit of EUR 2 pay day loan lenders.3 million. But the adventure might not stop there way.

Strategic areas

"One day we will also be in Africa, there is much to do to meet the growing population and needs five times more important in agricultural commodities in the next fifty years, said Charles Vilgrain. There are three strategic agricultural areas in the globe where you must be: the Eastern Europe, Latin America but also Africa, the official added. International groupings have already taken place at the trading level of the meat but not at those specialized in field crops such as wheat. AgroGeneration wants to get the ball rolling. "

A vein that attracts the greed of investors. "The agricultural commodities sector is increasingly financialized," said Michel Portier, Agritel manager specializing in risk management on agricultural commodity prices. Other examples: the land of the management company Pergam Paris, Campos Orientales. "We have 30,000 hectares of farmland in Argentina and 25 000 hectares in Uruguay, explains Olivier Combastet, président.Notre its production is very diversified in rice farming, wheat, barley or soybeans. "Closer to home, Russia, Dreyfus, through its holding reset Agro, already controls 90,000 hectares of farmland and 150,000 hectares is the term.

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A modern fairy tale with young "misfits" in the lead roles. Four years ago, Jean-Jacques Salaün, the general manager of Zara France, has launched a new and daring to help disaffected youths from tough neighborhoods. "I told myself after the events of 2005 in the suburbs that we had to do something for these kids abandoned," he says. The French boss of the brand's ready-to-wear convinced his Spanish CEO to leave in recruiting Permanent, full-time and minimum wage, a dozen young per semester that will train and promote vendors as two stores. "I'm young that nobody wants, while others take only young people that everyone wants," says he: women forced into marriage, deprived of political refugees, young people out with their families or society – some have been in trouble with the law. The tenth "promotion" began training this week.

Soon selected, prospective vendors are sent 15 days in a hotel in the Paris region where they are supervised 24 hours 24. "They are given drama lessons, speaking, sales, kitchen …, detailing the patron of Zara France. They are taught the basic rules of group living. Personalities come every day to talk about their passion and their profession. "Raymond Domenech, the former coach of the France team football, is a faithful

. "They just trusted …"

"It is not easy, there are tensions, but the fact of failure to trust them is one key to the success of the operation," added Jean-Jacques Salaün, Michel supported daily by Paras, the Steward FW. "It was so beautiful – we were fed, housed, paid, we got celebrities – we thought there was a trap, remembers Konte, a young of the first class that will become part of the Zara Montparnasse in Paris. And no, there was no wolf guaranteed high risk personal loans. They just trusted, given a job and they made me an example for all of my small city. "

Once their training is completed, youth are sent for a week in stores where they are supervised by a tutor, one week before returning for a final training in sales techniques. "After a month this plan, I challenge you to tell me what are the youth who attended this training," says Jean-Jacques Salaün. "They are like other sellers, confirms El Idrissi, store manager of the Boulevard Haussmann in Paris, which hosted five young people in four years. It is just more attention to them without making them privileged. "

150 000 euros per year

An operation that works! In four years and nine promotions, 133 youth were recruited from Zara, 50% are still working. The operation has a cost, not insignificant: 150 000 euros per year. "It's great, but it's not rocket science for a big company," says Jean-Jacques Salaün, who never wanted to mention this in the media before being asked by Le Figaro. "And it's useful. I regret never having managed to convince other major groups to do the same. "

Especially since this operation has not only served troubled youth … It has helped reduce the number of part-time (common in the trade) for all employees by extending the CDI system on two stores in 600 vendors . And this is just the beginning for Jean-Jacques Salaün account duplicate this system to other brands (Zara Home, Massimo Duti …) group Inditex which owns Zara.

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Yesterday, James Cameron, Titanic director has given the private submersibles under the spotlight the feat by successfully exploring, alone in a small sphere, a site 10 kilometers under the sea off the Philippines.

Certainly, it is far from the submarine Phoenix, luxurious project of U. S. Submarines: $ 78 million and 65 meters long. It can cross the Atlantic in one go and has, height of chic, its own miniature submarine. Maybe he interested Richard Branson, the Virgin boss adventurous. It prepares to dive in the Puerto Rico Trench with its own submarine by 8600 meters of water in search of possible treasures.  

Competition is low: according to the manufacturer SEAMagine, only a dozen billionaires possess a submersible, but more often would welcome megayachts small submersibles one million dollars.

French side, the builder DCNS is on deck: its Nautile, the source of scientific submersibles, may well also realize the dreams of billionaires. Who can do more

.

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After Marseille last October, Air France is launching 18 new routes in Europe and the Mediterranean from Nice and Toulouse. Air France-based aircraft to 10 8 to Toulouse and Nice with the aim of winning 600,000 and 250,000 passengers in Toulouse to Nice. The French company decided a year ago to be placed in the low-cost launching an offensive in the regions, particularly to counter easyJet, its rival, which has also recently opened two new bases … Toulouse and Nice.

But for easyJet, the development of the company is simpler to implement, "one is born low cost, it does not become so" amused himself last October François Bacchetta, its chief executive. Indeed, Air France, move to low-cost model implies big changes: we must be more responsive, increase the productivity of aircraft, reorganizing the work of hostesses, stewards and pilots, who will now fly more on fewer days, and reduce costs.

Orly soon affected by the reorganization?

However, in Toulouse – where ten new destinations in Europe (Athens, Berlin, Hamburg, Malaga, Malta, Naples, Prague, Seville, Venice and Vienna) and four (Casablanca, Istanbul, Marrakech and Tunis) are proposed – of Such changes are not appreciated by the employees of Air France. The CGT denounced a "deterioration of working conditions related to a much lower recruitment to the increase of activity planned." According to a senior manager quoted by the Journal du Dimanche, the new organization could receive Orly Airport: "This is an assumption on which the board working group on the short and medium haul."

The company, which reported in 2011 some 800 million euros in losses, hired in January a plan of savings over three years (2015 Transform), to € 2 billion savings and reduced debt 6 to 4,000,000,000 euros.

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Free Mobile customers retain a large majority, confident in their new operator. This is what spring launched a call for evidence on lefigaro.fr, which raised last week over 500 comments.

Two major trends. There are those for which the passage went smoothly and that no difficulty to make calls. "In Grenoble, it captures nickel without using the Orange network," says Andrei. "In some places, the coverage SFR does not allow me to capture correctly and to Free, in the same places, I get the network" welcomes Jules.

"Between 17 and 20 hours, it's hell"

Then there are those, more numerous, who see recurrent problems call for the evening, as well as cuts. "Between 17 and 20 hours, it's hell for making a call. It always fails on "network busy" and you have to try again twenty times to make a call, "says Emily. "Since March 5, the flow of Free Mobile 3G has enormously weakened and is very unstable", complete a resident of Lille.

Yet these customers often forgive the "teething problems" Free Mobile. "When I chose to come to Free, I knew there would be concerns, but I trust the professionalism of Free to solve these problems quickly," says Guy, Internet subscriber for ten years at Free. "At that price, I agree to some problems of network", abounds Paulo, who has spent her entire family at Free Mobile. Anthony, He remembers the difficulties encountered by the first mobile operators. "I suppose we must give some time to Free to upgrade," he considers.

Other customers are less forgiving. "I regret that I spent at Free! Customer service is saturated with calls. This is not a serious operator who was obviously not prepared enough to get into the mobile, "says Vince. "I just changed to B & You (the low-cost brand of Bouygues Telecom, Ed). There's no commitment so, who knows, I may come back when they are at Free at the point, "says Jordan.

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The Wall Street Journal, Google will soon be able to understand the meaning of the words searched by the user and to provide "direct responses", in addition to the traditional ties linking to other websites. These responses, semantic analysis results, will be displayed directly below the search form, as is already the case during a search on the term "weather" for example.

With Answers service, closed in 2006, Google had already tried to semantic analysis by the only means then available: human responses. People were then paid to answer questions from users. Today, the issues will be analyzed directly by algorithms. To recognize the user's request, Google will index all the information available online, relevant to the topic, rather than just keywords. The Wall Street Journal takes the example of a search for "Lake Tahoe" that will display directly the characteristics of the lake at the top of the results. If the user wishes to know the ten largest lakes in California, Google will display the list of lakes in addition to simple links.

Keep users on Google

By posting relevant content directly on the results page, Google users will no longer need to visit the pages indexed. Specialized site for The Verge, "provide direct answers instead of links to other pages to meet the new Google strategy, which seeks to keep its users within its walls, as it does with Google + quick payday loans." Google's interest is to increase the visibility of ads by keywords on the pages of results. This activity represents "the majority of $ 37 billion in annual revenues of Google," says the Wall Street Journal.

This innovation features reminiscent of Wolfram Alpha, a search engine capable of aggregating and format of information available elsewhere on the Internet. Wolfram Alpha is at the heart of the wizard voice of the iPhone 4S, Siri, who can ask a question to his mobile and get an answer directly, without needing to click a link or to seek self- same information on a web page. To do this, the software combines speech recognition and semantic analysis to recognize the words of the user and the meaning of his question. Recently, Anthony DiClemente, chief of the division of Internet and media research at Barclays Capital was concerned about the impact of the Apple software on Google: "Siri can bypass traditional search engines and provide the user with responses that originally would have necessitated a search online. "

Google could also put this new feature to good use in Android mobile. According to TechCrunch, Google is preparing to launch in fact a competitor of Siri for Android, Google wizard.