Hello and welcome to Esprit d'Entreprise, the show of major interviews on Figaro TV. The show that gives the floor to business leaders. Hello Olivia. Hello Gan. Today, we are pleased to welcome Olivier Roussat. Hello. You are the CEO of Bouygues, one of the major French groups founded in 1952 by Francis Bouygues and still controlled by the family and employees. You yourself succeeded Martin Bouygues in 2021. You became the group's CEO. Martin Bouygues became Chairman. So Bouygues is still real estate, still construction as in its early days, but also much more now. It's construction. With Colas, you make roads in particular. You are also in services and energy because you bought a large company called Equans. That was the big acquisition of recent years. You are in telecom with Bouygues Telecom and of course in television with TF1. Bouygues is therefore a very diversified group that today has 57 billion euros in revenue, employs 200,000 employees, and is present in more than 80 countries. So we will come back to the health and major issues of these multiple businesses, particularly the real estate market which is still convalescent. We will also talk about your appetite for consolidation in telecom since you are among those in line to buy SFR. We will talk about the French economic situation and politics, but first perhaps a word on the burning geopolitical news with the war in Iran. Is the Bouygues group present in Iran and how are you managing the situation on the ground?
Well, we are not present in Iran, we haven't been for many years. However, we are present in the Middle East. We are mainly present in two countries. We are in Dubai with a small entity that oversees our road activities, and we are present in Saudi Arabia with two locations, one near Riyadh and one near AlUla in the west of Saudi Arabia. Ultimately, in that region of the world, those are the only places where we are. You had built an Olympic stadium there in the 1970s. Why did you leave? Simply because under current conditions, it is not possible to operate in Iran with the entire embargo system in place. When solutions were found, agreements on the nuclear issue, we considered returning to that part of the world. That was around 2016 or 2017, and then those agreements ended, so the country is completely under embargo. Therefore, it is an area where we cannot operate and we do absolutely nothing in Iran.
So we see the situation deteriorating, with very heavy bombings in recent days on gas, oil, and energy infrastructure. We don't know how long this will last. Do you already feel an impact on your activities, you who are very diversified? Do you already feel an impact from this conflict?
First of all, very simply, for the safety of our employees, our priority, we decided to repatriate families who were in Dubai. We had about 200 family members, so those things are underway.
You repatriated everyone.
Yes, we still have our employees present, but their families are no longer there. We brought them back. It was on a voluntary basis. If people wanted to return, they returned anyway, but they didn't necessarily want to. Nevertheless, we repatriated their families. Then, in terms of activity, what are the consequences of what is happening? You already have an increase in freight costs. You have the increase in energy that everyone is following very closely. So what is happening could be the beginning of a situation where we trigger significant inflation, and that is not very good for the economy.
Yes, we experienced a similar situation in 2022 during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Do you fear, do you already see an inflationary push, particularly in construction, where prices had risen sharply? Are we already in that situation?
Since 2022, we have taken specific measures because in 2022 we were really caught off guard. We hadn't imagined in 2022 that inflation could restart. For almost 20 years, we had no inflation. So we had inflation on energy, we had inflation on a number of products we buy for all our construction sites. On energy, we now have hedging strategies, hedges on electricity costs. For example, we have high electricity consumption in telecom and at Colas for certain products that heat bitumen. A hedge on gas, because gas is used to heat bitumen. Now we have covered those. These are multi-year contracts. In 2022, we were not covered on gas. Now we are covered on gas. We reworked all the indexes. That is, we no longer paid much attention to indexes because inflation no longer existed. We modified the indexes, they were put back into our contracts. On long contracts, we have escalation clauses, clauses that allow us to account for what is happening. So we have changed our way of executing contracts since 2022 to adapt to a situation of inflation if it returns. And so now, the situation is here. I don't know how long it will last, and no one knows, and we'll see.
So one of the consequences might also be tension on interest rates. You are present in real estate. Do you also have concerns? Obviously, when interest rates rise, it reduces the solvency of our clients. Do you see that yet or not?
Not yet. Not yet. Currently, we have a cancellation rate in real estate. In real estate, we operate almost exclusively in France. In the real estate part, between the time people make a reservation and the time they get their bank loan, the difference is the cancellation rate. It's the bank rejection rate. In 2022, we reached almost 50% rejection rate, meaning 50% cancellations. The normative rate in our business is between 25 and 30. Currently, we are at 27. So the situation is relatively normal. The question we will face is if we have a significant surge and rates skyrocket, then we will make a number of clients insolvent and they won't be able to access homeownership.
We see that a number of companies, in this complicated geopolitical context, are starting to turn to the state if the situation lasts. Are you in favor of state aid for companies or sectors that would be in difficulty?
No. During Covid, we didn't ask for anything. In situations of inflation, I think it's not a good idea because, in any case, we are lucky to be present in many countries with many different businesses. That gives us relative stability when things happen. It allows us to absorb in one country what we lose in another. So it's not a system that seems very healthy to me. All administered economies create a problem anyway. So when I say no, it's in general, there's no point in giving us fuel aid or things like that. No, but we hear about price freezes on fuel, for example. I don't think that's a good idea because, sooner or later, you know that the state will recover the taxes it placed on oil companies and the shortfall it will have on those taxes when it blocks them, it reduces its taxes. Fundamentally, we will end up with an exceptional tax on who knows what on large companies. In any case, it will be a zero-sum system, so ultimately it's not something that seems like a good idea to us.
Speaking of economic policy in France, the political climate is quite tense. We had a lot of trouble passing a budget. As a business leader, do you feel that in your activity among your clients? Does it have an impact on the business world?
Well, when you look at the results we released for 2025 and you look at the specific French situation, the image we have in France is that construction, for example, was not doing very well. We have an increase in our activity in 2025 compared to 2024 in construction in France. And in fact, that was made possible because we are quite little involved in residential projects. We do a lot of things like hospitals, airports, special projects, or renovations for energy reasons of large complexes. So these are things that are currently promising and remain very high priority for our various clients, whether public or private, and ultimately allow us to progress. So in the end, factually, when you look at our results, it's not something that really shows. Now, if we have a lasting period of economic difficulty, typically in the public sector, if you take the example of roads in France, 40% of Colas' activity worldwide is in France, and most of that activity is with municipalities. If we very sharply reduce allocations to municipalities, then obviously at some point we have an impact. As we anticipated, we have started to diversify Colas' activity to prepare for the fact that there would be less money for roads in the future.
You were talking earlier about the contribution that large companies have been subjected to. The word 'contribution' is actually very poorly chosen. It's a tax. It's a tax. A contribution gives the impression that we are giving something. So we give it because we have no choice. That's how it is. I think you are not necessarily very willing on this type of tax. But isn't it normal for companies to also participate in the overall effort to restore public finances?
Yes, you are right, on one condition. It is clear that if at some point, to balance a budget, there is a need to ask for a special effort from companies, it is quite legitimate to do so. The question is not that; it is whether enough is being done on the spending side to ensure that the contribution you give helps to take a step towards restoring the accounts. But if you don't reduce spending enough, it's just something that never stops. It's a bucket with a hole in it, fundamentally. That's the problem. At least, that's the perception one can have.
You were talking earlier about municipalities, since you work with local authorities for roads and buildings, particularly for Colas. Yes. So there is a big debate in the business community: should we talk to everyone? Should we talk to all parties? The problem already arises for municipalities, and it will arise even more with the presidential election. Do you say, 'It's not us who choose the voters'? Well, we have to talk to everyone. I mean the National Rally, France Unbowed, everyone.
Before getting to that, I think it's important to understand that a company is there to serve its clients. It is not there to display its political opinion at a given moment. And you can see that explicitly within the group. TF1 is a channel that is considered, I believe, relatively neutral. We are not accused of being completely on one side or the other. And my concern is to ensure that we serve our clients and our opinions do not have to enter into the relationship we have with our clients. That's a general framework. We are a company at the service of clients, we are not there to push a dogma or a doctrine or an idea. Then, what is clear is that to work, there are subjects we know a bit about. We know what we can do to accelerate housing, which is an important issue in France. We know what we can do to possibly improve the quality of roads. We know what we can do to speed up the construction of nuclear power plants. There are ideas in telecom and television to continue supporting existing models. So when you have this kind of thing, generally, each time there are major events, we create little notes on what we think would be good to change. When we are asked for our opinion, we give it, and we give it very broadly. So there you go. But again, a company is not there to have a political opinion. Not from my point of view, anyway.
