THE era in which mainstream centre-left parties placed slowly roasting fat cat capitalists over an open fire at the top of their governmental to-do list lies buried in the pre-Blair and Clinton past.

But if the experience of France is anything to go by, such tactics are paradoxically back in favour with the centre-right and green radicals alike.

Over on the other side of the English Channel, Michel Barnier’s administration is looking for ways to trim a deficit currently topping 6% of GDP.

It has alighted on the traditionalist plan of securing an “exceptional contribution” from some 450 companies with a turnover in excess of €1bn ($1.1bn).

Standing in the firing line alongside the likes of TotalEnergies, L’Oréal, LVMH and Hermès is a solitary flagbearer for the shipping industry.

As Lloyd’s List has reported this week, CMA CGM is the only shipping concern that comes anywhere near that income threshold.

The proposed imposts have been set at 9% of income next year and 5.5% the year after, on top of standard corporate taxation, which the carrier believes would leave it an additional €800m out of pocket.

For many rich country shipowners, such a demand would be flat out unacceptable.

For decades now, they have become used to the widespread availability of tonnage tax regimes within the EU, as a sop preventing them from upping sticks to flags that are happy with low flat fees and no taxes whatsoever.

The availability of such generous tax breaks undoubtedly represents favourable treatment. Whether shipping deserves the kid gloves approach is now coming into sharp focus.

Slightly surprisingly, CMA CGM chief executive Rodolphe Saadé has expressed complete readiness to stump up, citing “patriotic spirit”.

In so doing, he is demonstrating a commendable acceptance that CMA CGM is among France’s top companies and should therefore be taxed on the same basis as its peers.

It’s not as if it doesn’t have other options. One can just imagine the reaction to a similar demand on any shipowner anywhere else in the EU.

Indeed, in jurisdictions such as Greece, where tax exemption for shipowners is constitutionally enshrined, it wouldn’t happen.

For balance, it must be pointed out that CMA CGM has received generous state support in the past and didn’t say no when it needed the money.

In the shipping downturn that followed the global financial crisis, when it was struggling with a $5bn debt mountain, sovereign wealth fund Fonds Stratégique d’Investissement came through with a substantial cash lifeline.

CMA CGM was also named as preferred bidder for a state military logistics contract, which also must have been helpful.

If it’s now payback time, that’s how karma rolls. But the latest twist in this story takes us beyond anything that could conceivably come under the heading of fair play.

At the committee stage of the French budget last weekend, an MP from radical green party Les Écologistes successfully tabled an amendment seeking to put CMA CGM’s exceptional contribution on a permanent basis.

One has to suspect that Eva Sas hasn’t quite grasped the point of windfall taxes, which is precisely that they are a one-off by nature.

Certainly, neither she nor any other politician is seeking to whack any other company in the same way.

The case for the prosecution is that CMA CGM made profits of more than $40bn profit in 2021 and 2022, a performance unprecedented in French corporate history.

But thanks to tonnage tax, was subject to an effective tax rate of a mere 2%.

That is empirically true, and an easy sell to the public. Yet it is also empirically true that the preceding two decades were characterised by low margins and outright losses. Profits fell back to $1.9bn last year.

Over the entirety of the cycle, container shipping has tied up vast amounts of capital in the vital business of moving goods around the planet, while securing only suboptimal return.

The tax system needs to incentivise to keep going through the bad times, and even allow carriers a few vintage years.

There are hopes that common sense will yet prevail. The committee stage has added hundreds of amendments to the budget, leaving the last say to the conservative-controlled upper house. The senate can be depended upon to veto the wrongheaded ones.

Meanwhile, the issue of whether shipping companies are getting off too lightly is moving up the political agenda in other countries too.

There was some uproar in Denmark last year over claims that Maersk’s effective tax rate in 2021 was 0.27%, making it an easy mark for populists of all persuasions.

As Rodolphe Saadé has shown this week, there is no reason why shipping companies should not be good corporate situations and even go the extra mile in time of national crisis.

But asking them to pay their way is one thing. Singling them out for a fiscal punishment beating is quite another.