"Beyond the declaration of love, you have to have a credible program", assures François Asselin

Juline Garnier 9:08 a.m., April 16, 2022

INTERVIEW

While France is immersed in the middle of the in-between rounds of the presidential election, Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen are multiplying proposals to improve the purchasing power of the French and flirt with the bosses of small and medium-sized businesses.

In the grip of two almost consecutive crises, that of the Covid and that of the war in Ukraine, they are waiting for strong measures to preserve the French economy.

"We must pamper small and medium-sized enterprises"

"I want to revive the spirit of enterprise, rehabilitate the value of work and reconcile work and capital through participation", Marine Le Pen assured the Confederation of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (CPME) at the beginning of March that she would do everything to businesses.

But François Asselin, president of the CPME, is wary of beautiful promises.

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"You know, SMEs and VSEs, it's almost 1,900,000 companies that mesh the territory. You have 1,500 large companies, so you might as well tell you of course that it's 99% of the number of companies that make the French economy. We must therefore pamper them and Marine Le Pen was not mistaken. She does indeed make a lot of declarations of love vis-à-vis SMEs, VSEs, but above all we are pragmatists. that is to say that beyond the declaration of love, you have to have a credible program”, he confides at the microphone of Europe 1.

Get rid of "absurd" taxes

The RN candidate wants to abolish business property contributions and wants to help and encourage young people to create their own business, a good thing for François Asselin.

"She's right because these are absurd taxes. Which is to say, whatever the outcome, even if you don't make money, you pay before you know if you're going to make money. Emmanuel Macron also wants to tackle production taxes. So, in the economic field, we finally have two programs that are quite similar, "analyzes the business owner.

A very delicate balance

For the president of the CPME, French companies are today in a fragile balance because they have taken on a lot of debt with the Covid crisis.

Even if they have benefited from state-guaranteed loans, we will have to start repaying them.

Some companies will be put in default by the Banque de France and see their activity completely paralyzed.

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"It will be necessary very quickly after the election and to respond well to this expectation and to remove this concern", he warns.

"And then we have with the invasion of Ukraine by Russia energy costs which are exponential, like all the French besides, we pay for fuel at the same pump as all the French. You have companies which are highly dependent on energy and obviously that undermines their economic model," he adds.

Quickly find solutions

According to a recent CPME survey, a majority of companies cannot pass on energy price increases to their selling prices and are cutting into their margins.

"Which means that in the medium term, it can call into question the financial balance of the company and the balance of the economic model", warns François Asselin.

For the boss, the priority is to put in place specific measures for these companies and to speed up negotiations with French energy companies.