Invited to speak to employers, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne on Monday urged companies to quickly reduce their energy consumption so as to avoid “rationing” measures, without fully convincing the opposition.

"I call on each (of companies, editor's note) to establish, in September, its own sobriety plan", launched the chief executive in this back-to-school speech.

“If everyone does not take their part (…) we will have to impose reductions in consumption”, she warned.

And “if we were to come to rationing, businesses would be the first to be affected”.

Caution

While Roux de Bézieux had estimated in the morning that the State was "the biggest superprofiter", Elisabeth Borne replied dryly: "No Mr. President, there are no superprofits on the side of the State" , highlighting the expenses incurred to protect the purchasing power of the French.

The warning from the head of government comes as the war between Ukraine and Russia, a major gas exporter, has caused an energy crisis in Europe.

Since June, the French government has been repeating its objective of reducing energy consumption in France by 10% by 2024. Companies "will do their part", promised Monday the president of Medef Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux.

Meeting with the Medef

But “let us trust companies and entrepreneurs”, as well as intermediary bodies, hammered the “boss of bosses” in a more offensive speech than usual.

Where the boss of Medef is wary of state interference, Oxfam France is on the contrary sorry for the tone of the Prime Minister, considered too conciliatory.

The president of the LFI group in the Assembly Mathilde Panot was even more critical, judging that “at the Medef, Elisabeth Borne exposes the capitalist chaos: cuts, shortages, rationing”.

Reconstruction

Far from these political clashes, the Medef's Meeting of French Entrepreneurs (REF) opened in the middle of the day with a more consensual call from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to invest in his country marked by the war against Russia.

“Offer thousands of contracts, thousands of jobs, we need your participation in the reconstruction after the hostilities”, launched the Head of State, invited to open the debates by videoconference from kyiv.

Six months after the launch of the Russian offensive in Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky notably made appeals with his foot to companies in the building, automobile and energy sectors, before receiving a standing ovation from the assembly present at the Longchamp racecourse, where the REF takes place.

Economy

Meeting of French entrepreneurs: Borne and Zelensky star guests of the Medef back-to-school season

Company

Inflation: Elisabeth Borne promises not to "let energy prices explode"

  • Elisabeth Borne

  • energy

  • Gas

  • War in Ukraine