2023-07-06 12:08:09
At the end of a four-month campaign, Patrick Martin was elected head of Medef, France’s leading employers’ organization. Deputy President and as such number two of the organization, Patrick Martin, 63, obtained 73.18% of the votes against 26.82% for his competitor Dominique Carlac’h.
He enjoyed the support of a large number of professional federations and regional organizations of the Medef and was the favorite. Between 600 and 700 of the electors, out of a little over a thousand, were to be present at Hangar Y in Meudon (Hauts-de-Seine), south-west of Paris, to attend the announcement of the results.
Before that, Mr. Martin and his competitor were to speak, and the outgoing president Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux took the floor for his “last speech”. Before finally turning the page on his unique five-year term, the outgoing president will again take part in the Aix-en-Provence Economic Meetings this weekend, then hand over on July 17.
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To date, only one woman president of Medef
Patrick Martin is at the head of a company of nearly 3,000 employees, active mainly in distribution to industry, and is a continuation of the work carried out since 2018 with Mr. Roux de Bézieux. Supporter of an additional reduction of 20 billion euros in production taxes, to bring them back to the European average, he believes that the climate transition, due to investments “gigantic” that it requires, “should encourage us to introduce a capitalized pension part into our social protection”. He also wants to focus on training and employability, especially for seniors with the raising of the retirement age, and wishes to strengthen the representation of Medef with European authorities in Brussels.
In the position of challenger, Dominique Carlac’h, vice-president and spokesperson for the Medef, sought during the campaign to print an image of renewal, while rallying to her cause the other candidates who had launched themselves in March in the presidential race, Pierre Brajeux, Guillaume Cairou and Olivier Klotz. She was also supported by some big bosses including Jean-Dominique Senard of Renault or Christel Heydemann of Orange.
Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers Presidency of the Medef: the outsider Dominique Carlac’h receives the support of the bosses of Orange and Renault
At 54, she wanted “building a Medef of our time” which would make more room for start-ups. In her program, she proposed to “transforming the freedom to do business into a universal right to do business” by putting in place “policies for the care of children and dependent persons” to enable women in particular to devote themselves fully to their entrepreneurial activity.
To date, only one woman has acceded to the presidency of the first French employers’ organization. It was Laurence Parisot who served two terms from 2005 to 2013. Patrick Martin like Dominique Carlac’h had already competed for the presidency of Medef in 2018, before both withdrawing in favor of M Roux from Bézieux. The Medef brings together some 190,000 companies employing a total of more than 10 million employees.
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