On July 6, Medef, which represents 190,000 companies, will have a new president. Members of the employers’ organization will vote to elect Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux’s successor for five years.
Meanwhile, at BFM Business this Monday, the two shortlisted candidates, Dominique Carlac’h (Medef vice-president and spokesperson) and Patrick Martin (delegate president) participated in a decisive debate for two hours, addressing the main economic issues that are in the center of business leaders’ concerns.
Growth, industrial sovereignty, ecological transition, wages, distribution of values… what should we take away from this debate?
• What Medef for the next 5 years?
For Patrick Martin, “we are a fundamental axis of the social democracy that France needs more than ever”, and to offer a “Medef of solutions”.
The candidate advocates “maintaining and developing joint action, including joint management”.
“I am a fervent defender of social dialogue. (…) We are in the best position, workers and businessmen, to understand what is happening in the companies, ”he continued. “The trend in France is nationalization. If it worked, it would be known”, the candidate for the Medef presidency also dropped.
A tone quite close to that of his opponent. Convinced that companies are the “economic, social, environmental and human solution”, the candidate says she wants to form a “Medef of solutions, which affirms the central place of companies and entrepreneurs” in the face of the transformations to come.
“Joint management is fundamental. There is no ambiguity in that,” he adds, and says that he has seen in his experience “the relevance of social negotiation” with the unions.
On the other hand, the two candidates are opposed on the idea of a possible entry of microentrepreneurs to Medef sought by Dominique Carlac’h’s team. “It is the death of Medef”, believes Patrick Martin, “we would bring respectable people, but for whom many of them are not businessmen”.
• Which strategy for full employment?
In order to lower the unemployment rate from 7 to less than 5% in France, Patrick Martin called for “cutting off the upstream tap” to keep people away from employment in companies.
According to him, “demographics will force us to look for all these people away from employment.” “Our companies must multiply their efforts to get more involved in the orientation stage, then to receive the apprentices and finally to employ them.”
And make the following proposal: “Today’s learning, we know that it works for young people. But, why not extend it with the learning of the elders?
• Learning: the two candidates against budget cuts
For Dominique Carlac’h, “it would be a political mistake to give up investment in learning”, while the Government plans to reduce aid in the budget project. “I’m not in favor,” she said.
The same story on the side of Patrick Martin, who recalled having “negotiated learning aid” with the former Minister of Labor, Muriel Pénicaud.
“70% of these young people find a professional outlet in the year following their training. They do not cost the community, they bring the community back,” he said, acknowledging however a “blind spot” since learning “concerns mainly at higher levels of education but not enough sub-baccalaureate education”.
• Shortage of workers: it is necessary to “territorialize France Travail” proposes Dominique Carlac’h
According to Dominique Carlac’h, “we have two things to do. In the territories, we need a very territorialized approach. Hence my proposal to regionalize France Travail, that business leaders be in the governance of France Travail to guide training and that there be there is no unemployment mismatch between the young people who are being trained and the needs”.
And also to offer to “give your address book to those who don’t have it.”
For Patrick Martin, “the real difficulty is bringing rationality to the debate”, explaining “sharing” his opponent’s proposals.
• Telecommuting: the caution of the candidates
“I point out 3 risks: We can very well telework from India, Guatemala, so there is a potential relocation risk related to teleworking. The second risk is a fracture within the company between those who can and cannot telework. And then more In general, it is that there is no longer a collective, I am quite cautious with teleworking.
For Dominique Carlac’h, “it is not a panacea, especially in human relations in companies. It is not necessarily a trench warfare between managers and employees but between the employees themselves, between those who can benefit from teleworking and those who cannot”.
“I believe that the true project is to make work more flexible, but with a red line: any evolution in the organization can never say: ‘neither work less nor lose productivity, but that alarms me. We are not going to work less in this country”
• Salary charges: Dominique Carlac’h denounces the weight “on the salaries of the intermediate classes”
Asked about salaries by the head of the Eclore group Stéphane Manigold, Dominique Carlac’h denounces the weight of charges on certain salaries.
The candidate for the Medef presidency has also announced her desire to create a “consumer commission” in the Medef to “take the pulse of the consumer, their sociological evolution, to understand what they want, what they expect.”
• Industry: regulations, standards, the burden of the two candidates
Among the causes of deindustrialization and the delay that Europe has taken in terms of competitiveness compared to the United States and China, Patrick Martin cited excessive regulations.
“We will not have a strong economy without a strong industry,” said Dominique Carlac’h.
It also denounces “a totally anti-industrial performance regulation, which highlights the principle of precaution and vigilance against the principle of innovation and sobriety”. And to cite as an example the “14 permits” needed to build a solar farm in France.
He also announced that he wanted to create a “commission to regulate competition.”
• Production taxes: Patrick Martin wants to go further
“In production taxes, we have made a lot of progress. But it was a fight,” recalled Patrick Martin, referring to the 18,000 million euros in reductions obtained by companies. The vice president of Medef, however, said that he wanted to go further: “I think we have to get 20,000 million additional cuts”, which would place France “in the European average”.
• Decarbonization: for Patrick Martin, “we are going too fast”
Is energy sobriety imposed on companies a problem? For Patrick Martin, “companies are determined but I see many companies that feel threatened in their existence.”
“Si on doit aller plus loin, on ne peut pas demander aux entreprises françaises dans un laps de temps aussi court de se decarboner, sans quoi on aura des effets paradoxaux, des effets de désindustrialisation, de paupérisation et de fractures territoriales. On va beaucoup too fast”.
For the candidate, “the American approach” with the Inflation Reduction Act that rains billions in subsidies to green companies “is the right one.”
“Innovating means investment, so we have to release certain charges that would prevent us from investing and innovation takes time,” he continues.
The candidate questions the “eco-conditionality” approach, which would mean that if you want to carry out certain projects you have to prove that you have arrived before you leave.
• Taxing to finance the ecological transition is not
For Dominique Carlac’h, “if we invent a tax for every problem, we are not finished. Who pays? Companies are already paying a lot: 40 to 60 billion more per year in investment from companies. But to go to investment , at some point you need a profit. So at some point, you have to lighten costs a little to restore margins” to accelerate investments.
“It’s a French disease,” Patrick Martin abounds. “Les entreprises françaises sont au monde les deuxièmes les plus taxées en impôts et prélèvements. the taxes”.
• Shared value: for Patrick Martin, companies already do a lot
The candidate called for “stop stigmatizing” companies that he believes are already doing a lot in terms of shared value.
In particular, he recalled that during the joint negotiation with the unions, the diagnosis established that “value sharing in France continues to be one of the most virtuous in the world. In the United States, shareholders spend much more “on dividends” than a few years”. back.”
In either case, employers struggling to recruit will have no choice but to set up attractive shared-value schemes, he says.
• Artificial intelligence: a threat to companies?
For Patrick Martin, the problem “the challenge is not so much to know if it will create wealth or not, if it will destroy jobs or not, it is to accompany this movement, it is to do everything for an ethic of artificial intelligence.”
But for the candidate, AI is an opportunity “in terms of relevance of the offer, productivity, comfort at work, but we must anticipate the massive side effects.”
Dominique Carlac’h proposes “5 axes” for a roadmap. “It is a 4th industrial revolution. There will be opportunities and threats. If we look at the glass half full, it will be able to generate productivity, the entire business of the figure will be impacted, it will be able to generate customer relationship enrichment… You need a roadmap that promotes the ecosystem, that ensures technological monitoring, awareness and digital inclusion.
“The real problem is that AI is very selective, so you need a big digital inclusion program,” he explains.
How is the president of Medef chosen?
The election is carried out through “big voters”. A total of 1,123 voters will vote on July 6. Among them, 673 come from professional federations and 449 from territorial Medefs. The number of voters in each federation and in each territorial organization depends on their number of affiliates and therefore the amount of their contribution. More information in our article.
Source: BFM TV
