The employers plead for an acceleration of vaccination by highlighting the issue of competitiveness compared to our neighbors.

Nicolas Barré takes stock of a current economic issue.

The pace of vaccination is crucial in terms of health, but it is also a major economic issue since any delay will be expensive.

It is Philippe Martin, an economist close to Emmanuel Macron who advised him during the campaign, who makes this little calculation.

According to him, a week of delay in the vaccination of the majority of the population represents a cost of two billion euros for the French economy.

Because as long as the country is in a serious health situation like today, the economy turns less quickly, it loses at least 5% of national wealth per year, which makes two billion per week.

The sooner we reach our goal of vaccinating the population, the faster we can hope to emerge from the economic and social slump into which the virus has plunged us.

A message that the employers relay at the highest level.

By arguing that this is a competitive issue with respect to our neighbors: this is the message on which Afep, an association that brings together the leaders of the largest French companies, insists.

Their concern is to avoid a gap between France and the other large developed countries.

Because the first countries that will have reached their vaccination target will be able to fully reopen their economy, gain weeks of growth compared to others and save public money.

In short, a few weeks difference from one country to another is quickly measured in thousands of jobs destroyed or not, businesses saved or not, wealth created or destroyed.

The rising debate is also that of the health passport.

Medef is pushing this idea which consists of reserving certain activities for people vaccinated against the virus: attending a trade fair or taking the plane for example.

But we can also expand the list, even if that raises ethical questions.

The problem, again, is the gap with other countries: if neighboring countries relaunch their activity thanks to health passports and this is not the case with us, our companies will be disadvantaged.

The big question at the bottom is the following: will the exit from the Covid crisis, which we hope will be rapid, be synchronous between the main economies?

Or will some emerge long before others and take the lead and their companies market share?

The race for vaccination is also an economic race with the stake at stake in billions of euros and thousands of jobs.