If, in 2022, you are a presidential candidate and you have no proposals for the made in France, it is because you missed your campaign. It’s a fact, from Emmanuel Macron to Yannick Jadot, from Marine Le Pen to Valérie Pécresse via Eric Zemmour, no more pretender to the Elysée can ignore this subject. France, the European Union country that has deindustrialized the most since the 1970s – loss of 2.5 million jobs between 1974 and 2019, according to INSEE – must revive its secondary sector, boast of its capacity for innovation, encourage people to buy its products and young people to work there. The observation is today unanimous among politicians of all persuasions, as in public opinion in general. It hasn’t always been the case.
Outdatedness and extreme right
Fabienne Delahaye has seen this development up close. This former economics student, who spent her studies “to hear that industry was no longer useful and that finance and service had to be done”, created the Made in France trade show ten years ago. An almost daring choice at the time. “To be interested in made in France in 2012 was to take the risk of being treated with all the words in “-iste”, she says. We were accused, in the best of cases, of nerds who had not understood globalization and free trade, and, in the worst of the comments, we were assimilated to political extremism. Things have changed dramatically. »
During the first edition of the show (which brought together 70 exhibitors and welcomed 15,000 visitors, compared to 830 and more than 100,000 respectively last November), only Arnaud Montebourg, who has just posed in a marinière on the front page of the Parisian magazine to illustrate the priority of the new Ministry of Productive Recovery, and Marine Le Pen are moving. Ten years later, any self-respecting political figure should be seen there, if possible trying on espadrilles or tasting a little fruit juice with a local label. A bit like at the Salon de l’Agriculture, minus the hindquarters of the cows. No more risk, in any case, of being assimilated to the National Rally when we talk about economic sovereignty, industrial patriotism, protectionism or relocations in an uninhibited way.
Increasingly present in the debates during the last decade, driven in particular by the fight against global warming and an increased desire of the population to buy French, even if it means paying a little more (74% of people declared themselves ready to do so, according to a report from the Ministry of the Economy published in 2020), the phenomenon exploded with Covid-19. “He gave sight to the blind or to all those who were unaware of the issues, attacks Fabienne Delahaye. We all have in mind the images of caregivers in garbage bags because there were no more gowns, the battles on the airport tarmac for masks, or what the shortage of respirators cost. »
The general public has realized that many everyday products, including medicines, are no longer manufactured on the national territory. Thus, some 85% of active ingredients for treatments as vital as antibiotics, cancer drugs or vaccines are manufactured in China and India. “We can’t go on like this. […]it would be irresponsible and unreasonable”, had launched the Minister of Economy Bruno Le Maire in February 2020, at the start of the pandemic.
“The pandemic and the war are a rude awakening”
The war in Ukraine further accentuated the trait, as if we discovered that Russia was the leading supplier of gas (40.4%), oil (29.8%) and solid fuels (42.4%) of the European Union, and that this economic fragility could turn into political fragility. Even if you can’t produce everything in France, you have to be careful about the dependencies you agree to. “We take these crises in the face”, observes Gilles Attaf, president of the association Origine France Garantie, created at the end of Nicolas Sarkozy’s term of office by the former Secretary of State Yves Jego to “defend and promote the products of French manufacture. The founder of the Belleville costume brand presses where it hurts: “We were told for thirty years that the workshop of the world was in China, that France would be a tertiary country. We can see where this short-term vision has led us. We always wanted to go for the cheapest and, today, it’s costing us a lot. We must keep a minimum of production tools, otherwise we lose our independence and autonomy. »
“As usual”, adds Gilles Attaf, it will have been necessary to be at the foot of the wall to realize it. “It is not an awareness, because experts and intellectuals have had these thoughts for years, but they were in the minority or little listened to, nuance Gil Delannoi, research director at Cevipof and author, in 2018, of The Nation Against Nationalism (University Press of France). It’s more of a series of electroshocks for people who weren’t aware of the addiction they had gotten themselves into. The pandemic and the war are a rude awakening. You have to wait a bit to know the consequences. Will it be only in the speeches, or deeper than that? »
Gilles Attaf strongly believes in the second option. Friday, his association organized, as is the great fashion for this presidential election, a great oral where all the candidates were invited to deliver their proposals to revive the sector. Three were there in person – Yannick Jadot, Jean Lassalle, Nicolas Dupont-Aignan – the others were represented. Be that as it may, all of them – even those whose party has governed – have tapped like deaf on what has been done “for thirty years” and which has led us to where we are: in the cellar, with a trade balance deficit of 84.7 billion euros in 2021, our taxes which – say the candidates – are knocking businesses out, and shortcomings in the sectors of agri-food, textiles, medicines, steel, aluminum… In short, almost everything.
Everyone has their own ideas for ending this mess. In bulk: a strategic investment fund at regional level to invest in companies that enhance the territory for Yannick Jadot; an anti-mileage tax and the creation of a relocation agency for Jean-Luc Mélenchon; production tax cuts for Eric Zemmour and Valérie Pécresse; a peasant ticket which would allow the purchase of certain products for Jean Lassalle; a major research effort for Anne Hidalgo; the prohibition of products from countries that do not meet certain social and ecological standards for Marine Le Pen. Agnès Pannier-Runacher, for the outgoing president, recalled all that was implemented during the five-year term to “put an end to industrial capitulation” French. “Reindustrialising is neither easy nor quick. We are in the middle of the ford, ”explained the Minister in charge of Industry.
To this non-exhaustive list of ideas, we must add two points on which there is consensus: direct public procurement more towards French companies and study the possibility of a (very) reduced VAT on products certified as “French origin”. Two attractive levers, but for which it will be necessary to deal with European rules. A limit that earned this reply from the rebellious Adrien Quatennens: “We must assume health and ecological protectionism in contradiction with certain free trade treaties. We advocate disobedience on a case-by-case basis. »
Last point that deserves to be developed: everything related to the revitalization of industrial employment. Everyone agrees that we must work on training young people to connect them to jobs that recruit and thus expand the pool from which companies can draw. But for that, they still have to be attracted to these professions. There is a lot of communication work to be done “to introduce families and their children to the industry”, summarizes Hervé Morin, spokesperson for Valérie Pécresse during these “Conference on producing in France”.
When are the “Industrial Heritage Days”? Maybe a little bit too much, but why not, after all. “It’s a bit pompous, as an expression, but I say that it’s a cultural battle that is being played out at the moment, asserts Gilles Attaf. We must realize that the factory is not a dirty word but a place where we can also flourish. We advocate the “factory nation”. No need to explain the reference.