2023-08-28 19:31:07
The Prime Minister cajoles entrepreneurs, while confirming the postponement of the abolition of the CVAE.
Whether it’s called the Medef summer university or a meeting with entrepreneurs from France, the high mass of French employers always has its share of surprises… and announcements. The one that opened on Monday at the Longchamp racecourse, west of Paris, began with the exceptional and unprecedented intervention of the President of the Republic himself. Emmanuel Macron has indeed opened the festivities, with a recorded video broadcast on the big screen.
A few minutes to send a message of unity to the bosses. And say and repeat four times how much he had “need” of them, in particular for “winning the battle for full employment”, the battle “most important” to his eyes. But also to fight against the deindustrialization that affects France “for thirty years”, and for continued growth. Particularly in a demanding context marked by “geopolitical uncertainties”, technological transformations and climate change.
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In his speech, the Head of State carefully avoids mentioning the angry subject: dissension has emerged in recent weeks around the burning issue of the CVAE, a production tax. While its abolition had, last year, been planned and voted in the finance law for the year 2024, it will be spread out until 2027, announced Bruno Le Maire last week. A reversal that makes employers cringe. Nevertheless, Emmanuel Macron said: “You know you have a president and a government that when it commits to things, does it.” What trigger murmurs and yellow laughter in the assembly.
“Pro-business offer policy”
In the wake of the presidential intervention, against a particularly well-chosen rock background (Don’t Stop Me Now, of Queen), Patrick Martin, the new president of the Medef, elected last July, advanced on the stage, the Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne in the first row. It was to her, therefore, that he addressed himself, dropping: “We must not reverse the order of the factors and consider that our companies and our citizens are only adjustment variables”, at the risk of “compromising the future by absurd decisions”.
His new warning – the announcement of the postponement of the abolition of the CVAE would be a “bad signal” sent to companies, which have “need this immediate deletion”, he repeated – nevertheless did not have the expected return. Admittedly, Elisabeth Borne wanted to be reassuring, reaffirming without blinking that the government is leading “a pro-business supply policy”Who “will not change course” and will not include “no tax hike” – a few words that earned him warm applause. But it does not intend to come back on the postponement of the abolition of the CVAE. This will disappear “before the end of the quinquennium”, she promised, “at the fastest pace possible”, given the state of our public finances. “We keep a little hope on the calendar”we confide to the Medef.
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Not enough to totally balm the hearts of French bosses on this subject, therefore. Not more than on another thorny file: the surpluses of Unédic. The Prime Minister cast a chill by attributing the surpluses of the joint body that manages unemployment insurance to recent government reforms. The employers, he believes that it is the companies that are at the origin and would like to see them translated into lower costs. Here again, Élisabeth Borne left entrepreneurs unsatisfied by declaring that part of the sums would be earmarked for training and support for job seekers – “It’s called doing prevention,” did she say.
State expenditure
The words coming from the top of the state, which were intended to be reassuring, more or less convinced the bosses present. “I have the impression that we do not live in the same country, is surprised Christophe Gamon, CEO of CGC Vector Sud, an audit company. If we listen to them, everything is fine.” He has a much more bitter observation: “We can’t find staff, bankers don’t play the game, we are one of the most taxed countries in Europe…” The pill for postponing the suppression of the CVAE is difficult to pass: “Me, I know where to make them, the savings: they only have to reduce state spending first”, he throws.
Jean-Luc Tuffier, the president of the French Building Federation Grand Paris, is more lenient: “It is good that Emmanuel Macron spoke, not all presidents do. Afterwards, there were no big surprises. But with him, as with many others, the same story on production taxes: “Each time we reduce a tax, another increases behind, we know that…” “The CVAE will not be abolished quite simply because our rulers cannot afford it, they cannot won’t happen,” laments another entrepreneur who passes by.
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Administrative heaviness, imbroglio of standards, increase in wages or reindustrialisation… Under the cloudy sky of Paris, French bosses are reshaping the world. “The President of the Republic said he was counting on us, but we are also counting on them!” launches Jean-François Robergeau, boss of Louineau, a construction company. “We know that we cannot rest on our laurels, stay on our achievements”, he explains in reaction to the interventions of the President of the Republic and his Prime Minister. “But we also need to be given the means to innovate and hire,” he insists.
Despite the disappointments, certain symbols were appreciated, like the arrival of Olivia Grégoire alongside Élisabeth Borne. “She is the Minister in charge of SMEs, it is a strong gesture and appreciated by our members, who are mostly small businesses”, recalls Dominique Carlac’h, unsuccessful candidate for the presidency of Medef. So, despite the rain that eventually arrive at the Longchamp racecourse at the end of the afternoon, business leaders cling to optimism.
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