The CPME, the second employers’ organization in terms of representativeness, estimated on Wednesday, October 15, that the draft budget presented the day before “deeply worries business owners.” The Confederation of Small and Medium Enterprises welcomes in a statement the resumption of the reduction of the CVAE, a tax on production, started in 2021 but suspended in 2024 and 2025, which should resume in 2026 until the total abolition of the CVAE in 2028.
But he considers “incomprehensible” the decision to impose “more than 10 billion euros in new taxes” on companies and entrepreneurs in the finance bill (PLF). This, he emphasizes, while “business bankruptcies reached their highest level since 2009 in September,” according to the quarterly Altares study published this week.
The CPME also criticizes the budget’s impact on labor costs, considering that it “weakens both companies and the purchasing power of employees.” It also points to specific measures for overseas territories that “further weaken territories that are already heavily affected.” The organization believes that “France will not solve its imbalances without reducing the lifestyle of the State.”
Critics also of Medef
Regarding the suspension of the pension reform, the CPME says it understands the search for a political compromise that is at the root, but warns: “To suggest that we can work less and save our pension system is to lie to the French.” The confederation finally asks the Government and parliamentarians to “make responsible decisions” to “promote production and investments in France” and “simplify the life of companies.”
Already on Tuesday, Medef, the main business organisation, declared itself “very concerned” by Sébastien Lecornu’s general policy statement, warning of the “risk of degrading the country”. Afep, a lobby representing the largest French companies, considered that the budget announcements were “in opposition to the priorities of large companies” and that they “hinder their ability to invest, to produce in France and internationally, to support employment and thus contribute to collective prosperity.”
Source: BFM TV
