Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux is sounding the alarm about the growth of the Gross Domestic Product. The French economy is approaching recession, the president of Medef worried on Wednesday in an interview published on the newspaper’s website. The gallery.
“We are heading towards a fairly clear slowdown in the economy,” said the leader of the country’s first employers’ organization. “Technically, France will not be in recession”, characterized by two consecutive quarters of decline in GDP, “but certain signals show that we are approaching it”, he continues.
Growth below 1%
“In addition, many companies are starting to be caught up in loan repayments (PGE, state-guaranteed loans) taken out to overcome the Covid period,” says Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux. In a report published at the end of May, the Observatory of business financing nevertheless pointed out that “more than 95% of companies (reimbursed) their PGE correctly”.
At the end of 2022, “more than 48 billion loans” would thus have already been repaid, “out of the 143 billion euros granted”, detailed the Observatory, which brings together the main employers’ organizations and the banking sector, the Banque de France and the departments of the Ministry of Economy. “For the first time, I am a little more measured than the official speech”, assumes the president of Medef.
After growth of 0.2% over the first three months of the year, INSEE (National Institute of Statistics) expects an identical growth rate in the second quarter. The Banque de France expects growth of 0.1% between April and June.
A charge against the ISF
Also asked about the advisability of taxing the richest taxpayers to finance the costly investments necessary for the ecological transition, Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux considers this idea of the economist Jean Pisani-Ferry “absurd”. “The wealth tax has demonstrated its extremely negative effects on investment. To invest, you need growth, not taxes, ”insists the man who is to leave his post at the head of Medef this summer after a five-year term.
Nor is he in favor of taxing businesses geared towards ecological transition. “I am always wary of this tendency to want to immediately tax companies as a reflex,” he argues. And, according to him, “decarbonizing will mechanically lead to higher manufacturing costs and therefore inflation”.