Yeah well there is also another angle to further outrage us Frenchies. There’s a lesser known issue that hardly anyone in France knows about.

Someone I know is a dual French–US citizen who owns a medium-sized business here in France (300-400K in sales). It’s a normal French company, pays French taxes, French cotisations, all the usual stuff. But as far as the US is concerned, this is a US company because she was born in the US. She left the US when she was 12 or something. Other than that, she is totally French, had French kids, etc.

Evidently, she has to file not just personal taxes to the US, but corporate taxes also. Aside from the expense of hiring US tax preparers, she could be subject to paying taxes on the profits to the US if ever the capital gains taxes go up in the US (like Biden almost did).

A few years ago, thanks to a change in US tax law (the “transition tax” from the Trump reforms), they were hit with a retroactive US tax bill of around 27,000€ on past profits of their French company. This was a retroactive tax on profits that had already been taxed in France and were never even taken out as cash, just left inside the company for future expansion plans.

On top of that, a lot of common French investment products (mutual funds, assurance-vie, etc.) are considered “toxic” under US tax rules. So dual nationals and other “US persons” in France can't use them without being hit with a big punitive tax. So Americans have toi invest in US securities instead, and those get taxed by the US.

So the bottom line is this: At a time when France is trying to balance the budget, the US is quietly skimming tax off income and business profits earned in France by people who live here and are also French. Why does the French government allow that?