Guest from Europe Evening this Tuesday, the president of the association network for financing the creators and buyers of Initiative France companies, Guillaume Pepy, affirms that France will not experience cascading bankruptcies.

He also believes that we are going through a good time to get into entrepreneurship. 

INTERVIEW

From the railroad to entrepreneurship.

After having managed the SNCF for years, Guillaume Pepy is now president of the association financing network for entrepreneurs and buyers of Initiative France.

And this is no small feat as the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus begins to make its effects felt in France.

However, the ex-locomotive of the SNCF affirms it: it is the right time to create a business.

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"Go for it !"

Guillaume Pepy knows very well that "not everyone is going to start a business", but his goal is to lift the "inhibition" which, according to him, occurs just before a creation.

"My message is 'go for it!'", He says.

Especially since if confinement and deconfinement were a difficult period for companies, Guillaume Pepy does not believe that France will experience cascading bankruptcies. 

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20,000 volunteers and 50,000 jobs created in 2019

A certainty that it is based on a survey conducted among some 50,000 small businesses and entrepreneurs in the region by Initiative France.

According to the latter, "7 out of 10 say they have been well supported, in particular with the solidarity fund set up by the State and the emergency fund for the regions".

According to Guillaume Pepy, nothing therefore seems to be able to prevent a Frenchman who has an idea from embarking on the "brilliant" adventure of entrepreneurship, not even money.

"Initiative France is there with the public investment bank, the regions and the State to provide honorary and bank loans" to entrepreneurs.

And when they are granted, it is the "20,000 volunteers of the network" led by the former number 1 of the SNCF who support these new companies "over a period of three to five years".

In 2019, Initiative France enabled the creation of 50,000 jobs.

And the coronavirus crisis does not seem to slow down the ambitions of Guillaume Pepy, who expects a figure "two to three higher within three to five years".