Paris (AFP)
Minister Delegate for SMEs Alain Griset said Tuesday that the recovery of small and medium-sized enterprises was "better" than envisaged, indicating that the failures are "not more numerous than usual".
"The recovery was overall better than everyone expected," said Alain Griset on Sud Radio.
"We see that there are not many more numerous failures in figures" than usual during the same period, he said.
“Every year, there are about 50,000 businesses that close,” he said.
"There will be at least that many this year. Our goal is that there aren't many more," he said.
While few procedures were initiated during the confinement and companies were fairly protected from bankruptcy by various mechanisms such as partial unemployment, loans guaranteed by the State (PGE) or the Solidarity Fund for the smallest of Between them, business failures are expected to increase by 21% in France by 2021, according to a report by credit insurer Coface published in early June.
"We have not bankrupted a higher number than usual (...) because indeed since March (...) we have put in place measures to support companies and we continue to look for the sectors most in difficulty how we can continue to support them ", explained the Minister Delegate.
"But of course (...) we have to be careful because we are not at the end yet", he added.
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