You wished to reduce the social bill, and we see the results 30 years later. Indeed, all studies still show the imbalances and disparities between territories. And you who call for social cohesion, once again, can the company play this role of integrating people and sustaining social cohesion?
Absolutely. I am absolutely convinced that industry, our industry, is a vehicle for development. We aim for at least 20% of managers in our factories or throughout our hierarchy to come from the earliest entry levels — meaning from machine operators or forklift drivers in logistics. The idea is that we must play this driving role. Michelin spends about 6% of its payroll on training because we believe that if Michelin is a platform for development, its role is to provide each individual with the means to develop. But ultimately, it is the individual who must decide. We put in place mechanisms that allow everyone to develop. I really appreciated at CMA CGM — Rodolphe invited me to the main ship dispatch room, where I was struck by the fact that every ship captain must at some point in their career coordinate other vessels. This is a mode of development I find truly remarkable. I drew conclusions from this at Michelin regarding how we allow people who will take on major responsibilities to share everyday life. It's a bit like 'walk a mile in my shoes' — experiential learning like apprenticeship are extremely essential modes of learning for the company. So behind this, the company is an incredible vehicle for development, and social cohesion is a major problem. When you have a majority of people who don't find their place — France today, according to recent statistics, has several million people in survival mode. That is a problem for our society, a developed society. The question of wealth redistribution does arise. But the issue in the current debate is that before redistributing wealth, you have to create it first. And today, we don't even have that debate anymore. We don't ask ourselves how we're going to create wealth. We ask at the margins how we're going to redistribute it — with somewhat simplistic solutions from my point of view — but the question of the conditions for creating wealth is no longer asked. And that is a real problem for our societies. For us companies, the first thing we seek to do is grow our revenue before dealing with other lines of the income statement.
But do you believe that today in your country, everything is done to not produce enough, to put obstacles in the way of companies, and to downplay the issue of work? We had a former prime minister who didn't last very long but who explained that we weren't producing enough, that we weren't working enough. Perhaps he was right — the 35-hour week came about then — but do you, who also observe this, feel that the question of work needs to be put back on the table?
We must not conceive of work as a form of alienation for individuals. I consider work to be a tremendous opportunity for a person to develop and exercise their talents. For me, it is an accelerator of personal development. So we need to bring the societal debate back to these questions. Work must be revalued. Now, as for the quantity of work, we must be careful not to fall into excesses where too much work becomes another form of alienation. But I am convinced we must revalue work because work is a factor of fulfillment. That means through wage revaluation or simply by explaining to the French people that work is a means of personal valorization and social mobility. Yes, all of this must be done, but people must also be properly compensated. And that's why I spoke first about asking how we create wealth. If the foundation of wealth creation is social alienation, it doesn't work. You cannot — individuals need to project themselves forward. If you keep them in survival mode, it doesn't function. So the question of competitiveness is essential in our economy, and one we rarely discuss. It's been a long time since I heard competitiveness talked about. Competitiveness — local, regional, and global — so we ask ourselves about the capacity to develop wealth. But once we've done that, yes, people must be properly compensated. Michelin has put in place a living wage for all its employees worldwide. We've established a universal social protection system, because we forget that in France we have an incredible social system. The Carte Vitale — when I use it at the pharmacy, I always have two feelings. The first is that it's incredible to see this amazing mechanism. The second is that it's actually frightening — I don't even know the real price of the medication anymore. So on one hand it's brilliant in terms of ease of use; on the other, we've developed the mechanism so much that we no longer realize what we're buying, and it becomes inappropriate. It's actually a system of wealth redistribution, a system of social cohesion — our social security — but we've simply forgotten why it was built that way. We need to be able to maintain it, and so we must ask ourselves about the competitiveness of our companies. But competitiveness achieved only through wage cuts or labor cuts can't work — you can't motivate a great human collective that way. At Michelin, there are 134,000 highly motivated people. Michelin's engagement rate is around 85%, which is very high — in the first decile. But it's constant work. You have to motivate Chinese people, Americans — Michelin is present in 175 countries. The French levers don't apply in England, Spain, Portugal, and so on. However, the common thread of this entire community is that they are all human beings. And when we come back to the essence — we promote the fact that work is a mode of development, but you must pay people properly so they're not in survival mode and can dedicate themselves fully to their work. That also means accompanying everyday problems — for instance, if someone has a plumbing issue and the plumber can only come at 10:30 in the morning, we make their life easier rather than preventing them from dealing with it. There is particular attention paid to helping people dedicate themselves fully to their development. And when they do, the byproduct is performance and results. So it's a virtuous mechanism — and one I believe our society has somewhat forgotten. Dr. Pouyanné, who was at the economic meeting a few months ago in July, said: 'I'm French, I love France, I'm proud to be French, I'm proud that my company is in France. But if you knew all the efforts I have to make to stay in France — I could obviously leave because it's so complex.' Obviously I know your answer more or less, but has it crossed your mind that what we do in France is complicated, it costs us, it's difficult — and perhaps we could have imagined a different destiny elsewhere?
In reality, fleeing is not a good way to solve problems. So we are very happy in France. But I am very demanding of my children, and I am very demanding of my country too, because I love both — my children and the country.
And so you expect a lot from your country.
Thank you very much. Let's move on to questions. Can we applaud him please?
We'll move on to questions from the audience. Mr. Pascal Blin, please. Right here. Go ahead, please introduce yourself.
Good morning, Mr. Chairman. I'm Pascal Blin, Director of France Travail Provence Côte d'Azur. First, a small anecdote: having accompanied you in 2009 on the social side at Blan, and between 2014 and 2021 as director of Ovérenalp, I can testify through concrete experience to everything you've said — and it's true, it's not just a posture. I had a question about the living wage, since we're in a country where out of 9 million poor people, 2 million are working poor. I'd like to say first, thank you for raising this question, since you're connecting to a great tradition going back to the 19th century — but it's a very real issue in France today. You spoke of social mobility — it's true that work doesn't necessarily lift people out of poverty. I'd like to know how you perceived the debate you initiated on the living wage, how it developed in public discourse, and ultimately, with hindsight, what you think about it?
Michelin has the advantage of being very innovative. Our social system also allows this innovation — the capacity to constantly question ourselves and build tomorrow's wealth. So the question of sharing in the wealth is possible because we've created it. I found many people asking themselves the same question about the living wage. We weren't there to give lessons — we were simply saying, here's what we've done. And in fact, our subject when the press seized on it was social innovation in general — not only is our innovation flow on products and services, but also on our relationship with society and our collective within the company. This generated a great deal of very positive debate — it resonated because these underlying questions are very present: the question of wealth redistribution, the compensation of capital versus labor, these are essential questions for our societies. And we see that modern capitalism has gone very far and created enormous gaps — so a part of society no longer finds its place. When your work alienates your development rather than being a vehicle for it, that's a problem. It doesn't work. So we said: here's what we manage to do, but there are conditions — you must create wealth, otherwise it can't work, and that's more complicated.
You defend a truly exemplary model, but isn't the problem that the system is broken in France, and what you defend will never come about?
Well, I don't believe that. I am deeply optimistic. When a factory doesn't work, you often put in place a different human system, a different management approach, and the factory can start working again. So I think we just need to get to it.
If you'll allow me to extend my question — hasn't the country missed the steps that would lead us in that direction?
I don't think that way. I say we must get to it. That's all. I don't look at what we did in the past. We are where we are. We did a lot of great things and some less great things. The question is: what do we do tomorrow? Not what did we do yesterday. That backward-looking vision isn't very useful. The question is what are we building together for tomorrow and the day after?
Another question, the gentleman over there — I saw you. Micro over there please. Alexandre Pastor, please — I believe it's you. Yes. The mic is there. Go ahead, sir.
Good evening. Thank you for your talk. I'm Alexandre Pastor. I'm the founder of an association that does civic education for young people. I was inspired by the movement. Your opening was very interesting, and I had a question for you. Does the movement come from the collective, from society, or does it come from the individual?
Both, actually — one is inseparable from the other. Society is just a form of human organization that goes back a very long time. Human beings are weak creatures compared to nature. When you face a lion or an elephant, a human being doesn't stand much of a chance. What has the human being understood since the very beginning? That in numbers, we are much stronger. So organizing into societies is a basic survival mode for human beings. Humans are fundamentally relational beings because they need others to survive. You might call it selfishness, but it's actually not — it's extremely intelligent. It's saying: I'll be much stronger in a group. What was true a very long time ago remains true today. The relationship with others is indispensable, and in our companies, we realize we can do incredible things even though we are individually weak. The myth of Superman — we'd love to have Supermen or some kind of collective unconscious — but in reality, the Superman is our collective. That's what makes the strength of human beings today. So I don't oppose the individual and society — the two go hand in hand.
