Asterix and Mickey Mouse fans escape tax increase

Asterix the Gaul and his big-eared American cousin Mickey Mouse can breathe easier after French MPs rejected plans to more than triple the tax on theme park tickets.

President Nicolas Sarkozy has ordered his government to find more money to help plug the hole in public finances but one of the proposals, a sales tax hike of 5.5 to 19.6 per cent on ticket sales to around 200 theme parks in France, was rejected by a key committee in the lower house of parliament.

Budget minister Valerie Pecresse said she still hoped to get the measure adopted but, for now, the attempt to net an annual €90 million (£80m) extra is in abeyance after MPs with theme parks in their constituencies dismissed the plan.

Parc Asterix, north of Paris, charges children €30 and adults €40 to relive the fictional Gaul’s Roman-repelling feats.

Along with Eurodisney, the European home of Mickey Mouse, Asterix is one of the crowd-grabbers within a wider French theme park offering that includes the Futuroscope park in western France.

Ms Pecresse said other holiday and leisure offers are taxed at the near-20 per cent VAT rate and in hard times there is no reason to continue a theme park discount introduced in the 1980s by François Mitterrand.