We'll get right into it. 'Earn More, It's Now' is the title of the book you're publishing with Fayard. A book in which you say you're proposing a new prosperity for everyone. It's a bit of a departure from the prevailing pessimism. 'Earn more' – we're all for that. To do this, you propose working more, moving to a 40-hour week, among other things. One of the 30 measures is moving to 40 hours a week. Ultimately, it's the big return of 'work more to earn more' from Nicolas Sarkozy.
I think we need to look at how France can reform itself. With the people I wrote this book with – three other hands-on bosses – I realized how we could get reforms accepted that are accepted worldwide, reforms that have been done by Canada, Sweden, Germany. So we said we need to reach the French people. And what do the French want? They want purchasing power, that's clear, they're asking for it. They want a job, of course, and they want a job for their children. They want the social elevator to work again. It no longer works today. When they were on the minimum wage 20 or 30 years ago, you had the possibility, the hope of doing better than the minimum wage. Today, it's more difficult. So they want that hope and pride in being French. We worked on purchasing power. Why? What did we think? As I did with the 'one million jobs' project, which was heavily criticized when I was head of the MEDEF, you said we need to reduce business charges and in exchange we'll create a million jobs. No, that's simplified. Not at all. There was the Macron law, the Pinel law, simplification of the labor code, and you got a large part of your demands at the time. It was François Hollande, Emmanuel Macron. The supply-side policy created those 2.3 million jobs. We were very happy because we lowered unemployment for France. So we thought, why not do the same thing with the purchasing power of the French? That is, reforms presented as sacrifices, as terrible things – liberal, ultraliberal, anti-social – but not at all. We worked and transformed each of these measures into savings, into gains, especially for employees, for working French people. You know, this comes from the principle that I see a lot of people, a lot of bosses, a lot of employees, a lot of taxi drivers. I take them regularly. They tell me, 'Mr. Gattaz, the last one told me, 'I'm fed up, I work like crazy and I earn as much as my brother-in-law who's in front of the TV collecting unemployment.' So we need to listen to people, and I really like listening to people because you learn a lot. People don't want to work more to earn more. That's why I'm against free public holidays. Well, voluntary, I disagree. It was a mistake. But it wasn't a mistake. I don't know politically if it was good or not, if it's a negotiation tool, but in any case, I think work must be paid. Worse than that, we're moving people to 40 hours, that's 8% more net salary if we go from the current average of 37 hours per week for the French to 40 hours. And secondly, everything above 40 hours is overtime that should pay even more. We increase it by 50%. If the guy is paid 15 euros net, he should get 22 euros, tax-free because you have to remove social charges. So the whole ambition of this book is to say there is a possible future in France. People can earn more, we can get the social elevator working again, but we need to make savings. And a model we never look at is Switzerland. In Switzerland, the minimum wage in Geneva is 3,800 euros net. They have 20% industry in their GDP. They have 3% unemployment. They have 70% of their 17-year-olds in vocational training. So you're saying a minimum wage of 3,800 euros is possible in France? Well, listen, I say 30% in 10 years is possible. Three times the minimum wage in France will be a bit more complicated. We'll have to fight. I'm saying it's not impossible in 30 or 50 years, maybe a generation. When you say we need to make savings, you also think we need to work longer. That's what you propose in terms of retirement, pushing it back quite seriously. You're considering 67. Yes. You also say we need to lower charges. Basically, the gap between gross and net should be much smaller. Absolutely. And we need to make savings on healthcare. Yes. So if I earn more and I no longer have social security and I'm forced into a funded pension system, do you think people... because you have to explain to them that it's not just the increase, there are many things that go with it. You have to choose between a very generous social model like we have today, which is very state-run, very assisted, because in fact we don't think anymore, we have the thing that falls, etc., and low net salaries, and the possibility of having much higher net salaries by insuring yourself and managing on your own. Because in Switzerland you have a minimum social security, in Germany too. Then you supplement it if you want. If you don't want to supplement it, you keep just the net. But if you say, 'No, it's a bit dangerous,' well, we can re-responsibilize the French.
What do people tell you? Because we talked earlier about public holidays, but there are a number of measures that François Bayrou put on the table on July 15th, and apparently it was a disaster. What makes you think that what you're proposing, people will say it's great, even if you've met bosses, taxi drivers, or workers who are on the ground? What do you say to 'don't touch my social security, don't touch my pension'?
But because I think we need to explain it. I think we need to explain that by saying you're going to have a better future, we're going to rebuild a formidable France. In fact, what's missing is a vision. I know I've had three or four crises to manage with my company Radiall and my five French factories. Each time, we motivate people for the day after tomorrow, saying, 'It's going to work, we'll make savings for a while, but afterwards you'll see, we're going to conquer the world, we're going to conquer China, etc.' Which we did. So ultimately, I think France is dramatically lacking a vision, an exciting ambition, a life project for 10 or 20 years to tell the French, 'Listen, it's true we've become poorer over the last 40 years for such and such a reason. I don't have an economic philosophy. I just see the countries that work and I see how companies make or lose money. And I see our neighbors: Germany, Italy for the last 2-3 years, Switzerland which is an extraordinary model of political and social democracy that we don't know in France. We don't want to see Switzerland, the Netherlands which have failed. And I think we need to tell the French, we can get out of this. We really can get out of this.
One of the big ambitions of this book, which gets a bit lost in the 30 measures, is reindustrializing the country. Why? Aren't you being a bit harsh when you say this country lacks a vision with Emmanuel Macron? Because he's the head of state who drastically lowered corporate taxes, pursued a pro-business policy, and lowered taxes on the richest. That goes in your direction.
Yes, what I said is that Emmanuel Macron did a good job on the revenue side. You know, when you're a household or a company, you look at revenue, you develop sales, and then you work on expenses. When you're a household, you always look at your income and expenses. A craftsman, a shopkeeper, always looks at that. A company – in the morning I work on revenue, in the afternoon I lock down everything I can. The problem is spending too much. I think he didn't manage the country's spending. There were crises, the Yellow Vests, we gave in, of course. Covid, but other European countries also managed Covid, and we ended up with a terrible debt of 500 billion more. So I don't want to bite the hand that feeds me because Emmanuel Macron did some very good things. He had the 'startup nation' that appealed to entrepreneurs and bosses, including internationally. He still has a certain aura among bosses. The problem today is that we have 3,000 billion in debt and a deficit that remains very high. I think the unfortunate trigger was the Yellow Vests and Covid. Before, we were reducing deficits, and suddenly we let everything go, and that's not good. So today we're in a terrible situation where we have to make savings, because without savings it won't work, and savings are possible.
So you mention quite a few. You also talk about an obese state. Yes. Saying we need to cut the fat to make it muscular. We'll stop the physical metaphor there. But when you see that the French are demanding more public services, considering they want civil servants to take care of them when needed, they want more doctors, more nurses, more caregivers, more police. How can you reconcile a state that only keeps the fundamentals so it's not obese, and you're going to tell people, 'Well, you might not have someone...' Even going further with the state, you'll take your train ticket, you don't know how to do it very well because you're a bit older, there'll be no one to help you. That's not true. No, I'm asking you how you manage to make it compatible.
