French soccer teams to skip weekend of matches next month in protest against tax plan

PARIS – Furious over a government plan to impose a tax on them, French soccer teams have unanimously agreed to scrap matches over one weekend at the end of November as a protest.

France's professional clubs held an extraordinary general meeting Thursday to decide the next steps in their campaign against the government's plan to implement a temporary 75 percent marginal tax on employers for paying salaries above a million euros a year.

Under the decision announced Thursday by Jean-Pierre Louvel, president of the Union of Professional Football Clubs, the league round scheduled for Nov. 29-Dec. 2 will not be played.

Louvel says "it's a historic moment" for French soccer.