"We are not an entrepreneur for, each time there is a difficulty, reaching out" to solicit help, insisted Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux on LCI.
"Yes, there are companies which are strongly penalized by the inflation of their costs which they cannot pass on in their prices", conceded the president of the first French employers' organization.
“Yes, there are energy-intensive businesses that are also having problems,” he continued.
"But when I look at the whole (of companies), today the order books are holding up" and the priorities of the bosses are rather "hiring and salaries".
"At some point, you also have to say to yourself + we are bosses, a boss is made to overcome difficulties, you get up in the morning with the desire to develop your company whatever the difficulty +, except when they are of the Covid type” with the key to administrative closures imposed by the government, insisted Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux.
In recent months, many professional organizations (CPME, U2P, Syndicate of Independents in particular) have multiplied calls on the Ministry of the Economy to obtain support measures in the face of soaring energy prices, which have jumped more than 15% between December 2021 and December 2022 according to INSEE.
The executive has in return deployed a battery of mechanisms such as the electricity shock absorber, the guaranteed tariff for VSEs or the tariff shield, an arsenal whose cost amounts to tens of billions of euros.
“We cannot afford a permanent + whatever the cost +”, judged Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux on Sunday.
"The rise in energy has been very brutal, (but) today prices have nothing to do with the 1,000 or 600 euros per megawatt hour" which were still going on in the summer and fall. 2022, he argued.
In the French and global economy, "there is unquestionably a slowdown", but "France always resists better in periods of recession" thanks to "a generous social model" which acts as a "shock absorber", he said. argued.
© 2023 AFP