Blurred and unclear. The Senate publishes its report on public aid on companies on Tuesday, whose cost for public finances seemed unclear during hearings, while this unexpected gain sometimes received coexisting with social plans or large dividends payments to shareholders.
This interviewed dozens of business leaders, ministers, economists, social partners from February to June … It particularly considered the companies that employed more than 1,000 employees and achieved a global net turnover of at least 450 million euros.
According to the Investigation Commission, more than 2,200 aid devices, the State, the communities, the Social Security or the European Union, are identified, according to the Investigation Commission. However, its amount is not clear, with estimates that vary from 70 to 250 billion euros per year, while the government advances the figure of 150 billion.
During his hearing, on May 15, the Minister of the Economy Éric Lombard detailed this last figure: 40 billion euros in fiscal expenses (including 8 billion for fiscal credit), 30 billion budgetary expenses (learning help, France 2030) and 80 billion social security contributions.
“Many teams”
The minister said that these AIDS were subject to “systematic control, rigorous monitoring and regular evaluations.”
On the commercial side, the Financial Director of LVMH Cécile Cabanis had indicated that the public aid census had requested “the mobilization of many teams” of the group to respond to the Senate within the time limit.
The luxury giant announced that it has received, in 2023, a total of 275 million euros in help, while stressing that “he agreed to take them to” 3.8 billion euros in taxes paid by LVMH the same year and an amount of investment in France of 3.9 billion euros.
Some hearings were more tense than others, such as those of the officials of the Sanofi Pharmaceutical Laboratory on March 26, which seemed to bother both the rapporteur and the president of the Commission, Olivier Rietmann.
The latter had noticed these officials who did not seem to notice “any relationship between perceiving public aid, paying dividends and saying the staff.”
“Cannibal Globalization”
On April 22, the president of Medef defended the aid, who prefers to call “compensation” in a very difficult global competition context. Patrick Martin warned against any brutal questioning of these devices.
The former economy minister Bruno Le Maire had also estimated that in an environment of “cannibal globalization”, the State had to bring “a stable framework to companies, particularly maintaining help”, even if they could be “simplified.”
The publication of the report occurs a week before the presentation of Prime Minister François Bayrou of the main lines of his savings plan of 40 billion euros by 2026, aimed at cleaning public finances (those of state, social and local security authorities).
To reduce the public deficit below 3% of GDP in 2029, the Government intends to strictly contain 5.4% this year and then 4.6% next year.
Source: BFM TV
