The CAC 40 privileged the shareholders and forgot the environment and the employees, according to Oxfam - France 24

Paris (AFP)

CAC 40 companies have privileged their shareholders for ten years, at the expense of the environment, their employees and women, denounces the NGO Oxfam in a report published Monday and whose previous edition had criticized its methodology .

"Record dividends, dizzying wage gaps, short-term profitability ... the CAC 40 is against economic good sense," said Quentin Parrinello, co-author of the report entitled "CAC 40 profits without a future?" and spokesperson for Oxfam France, quoted in a press release.

"Our study shows how, for 10 years under pressure from majority shareholders, CAC 40 companies have chosen to dedicate an increasing share of the wealth created to pay dividends to their shareholders rather than to boost low wages and finance the ecological transition to meet the needs, "he added.

The "pressure" of the shareholders "prevents the companies from taking into account a longer horizon and from investing to the height of the needs in the ecological transition", he still regretted.

According to this report, payments to CAC 40 shareholders have increased by 70% since the financial crisis (2009) to 2018. During this ten-year period, CEO compensation jumped 60%.

On the other hand, the average salary within these companies "increased only by 20% and the minimum wage by 12% over the same period", underlined the NGO which regularly denounces the inequalities created in the economic world.

"In 2018, a CAC 40 executive had already earned the equivalent of an annual minimum wage on January 2," denounces Oxfam, who is also indignant at the low representation of women in CAC 40 management.

"At the end of 2019, women represented on average only 20% of the CAC 40 management teams, while they constitute half of the employees, and 5 companies had no women in their management bodies," she noted.

Faced with this situation, Oxfam calls on the French government, which is preparing a recovery plan for the start of the school year, "to adopt rules for capping dividend payments to finance the ecological transition".

She also asked him to "limit wage differentials, revalorize predominantly female trades or even strengthen the representation and powers of employees in decision-making bodies".

Two years ago, the previous Oxfam report had presented France as the world champion in the distribution of dividends to shareholders, eliciting a virulent reaction from Medef which had treated it as "biased".

© 2020 AFP