We're still at the REF of the MEDEF. REF 2025, the Meeting of Entrepreneurs of France at Roland Garros, organized by MEDEF. An event that, as every year, Boursorama is a media partner for. Your next guest is Bertrand Dumazy, the CEO of Edenred. Hello.
Hello David. Thank you for having me.
Well, we have to talk politics, not just that, but we still need to discuss it. This French political situation that is unstable, we can clearly feel it with the possible fall of the Prime Minister on September 8th. Obviously, that concerns you. We saw the financial markets be a bit nervous. Does it concern you?
Yes, yes, it concerns me because as an entrepreneur, we need stability, since it's stability that creates trust, and trust is the fuel of growth and capitalism. So yes, I would like politicians to rise to the occasion and for partisan politics to be set aside for the benefit of the French people, of France, and of trust.
But how can this instability concretely be harmful? OK, well we understand, and it still needs to be explained, but for businesses, how is it harmful?
It's harmful first when I look at our clients who are massively adopting Edenred solutions, we see a slowdown today. We had growth of 15-20%, today the growth of our revenue is more in the range of 7 to 10% worldwide, and even less in France. And when we talk to our clients, they tell us, 'Yes, yes, we'll take your solutions, but we'd first like to know how the government is going to tax us.' Everyone has to make efforts, us too. What does that mean in terms of taxation? And as long as we don't know how the tax level will evolve, adopting new solutions that give purchasing power to employees takes a little more time in our decision-making process. So we see it in our French activity. France and Germany are two countries where growth is lower than the growth we have everywhere else in the world. Furthermore, there's a second element where it impacts us: Edenred is in the CAC 40, and the CAC 40 is in France. If there's political instability in France, then investors from around the world, and I remind you that 85% of Edenred's investors are not French, look from afar at the political situation, see uncertainty, and therefore don't invest in the CAC 40. And we saw it, on the day of François Bayrou's announcement of this September 8th confidence vote, the share price, I saw it, lost 5%. Ah yes, that's right, 4.8% since then, it's recovering. But that's exactly France, the whole world of investment watches France. Indicators like the CAC 40, instability means lack of visibility, which means less investment.
So you might put the brakes on certain investments, recruitment in France? France which accounts for 16% of Edenred's global revenue.
Well, we're actually fortunate to be growing strongly everywhere and a little less in France. So in the first half of 2025, we have growth in our operating profit of just over 14%. That means we have the means to invest. So no, we're not going to slow down our investments, even if growth is lower in France.
We can see that France today, to its creditors on the financial markets, is priced almost the same as Italy. We've surpassed Spain, Greece, and Portugal. We're very close to the same price as Italy. It's truly concerning. Italy was long considered the poor student in Europe. That means soon it will be us.
Yes, it's very concerning because Eric Lombard said that within 15 days, I'm betting, France would be at the same price, or even more expensive than Italy. Yes, it's very concerning because first of all it increases the cost of debt service. So we have a stock of debt. This stock of debt, we have to refinance it every year. The French state has to refinance it every year. And so there's debt that's reaching maturity. We need to raise tens of billions, and these tens of billions cost more. So France's credit rating has degraded and it's degrading further. So being able to raise money on the markets is more difficult and much more expensive.
And it also degrades the financing conditions for households for their mortgages, since banks look at the risk-free rate, which is the state's financing rate. Same for businesses too. I mean, it's the whole ecosystem that gets penalized.
Exactly. Debt is a drug, and it's a hard drug, and it's a drug we need to get rid of. There is no magic money. There is no long-term financing with over-indebtedness. That has never existed. That will never exist.
You who travel a lot, what do foreign investors or your contacts abroad tell you about this French political context?
So in fact, I would say I get three types of reactions. The first reaction is that France no longer is part of the global landscape and interest. That is to say, in the United States, people of my generation and younger very rarely talk about France and have a very distant relationship with France. Let me take another example: in Brazil, we're very close to Itaú, the largest private bank in Brazil. The predecessor of the current CEO loved working in France. And so when we talk, we don't even need to sign a document. He loves France, he's a Francophile, we understand each other right away, we move forward. His successor, who is an excellent professional, Milton, has hardly ever been to France and has no French ties. So what people tell me about France, or what I see changing, is first a group of people for whom France has essentially disappeared from the radar. That's concerning.
There's a second group: France is part of Europe, Europe is not doing well, and France is one of the contributors to Europe not doing well. And there, people are worried because we still need a third force between the United States on one side and the Chinese bloc on the other. The European third voice is a voice that counts. And what I hear is: 'Go Europeans, organize yourselves, wake up, we need you in the world. Your voice carries, it's deep, it's warm, it carries values that are important to us.' And then there are those who know France intimately because they have French ancestors, they love France because they love French culture. They've come to France and there, we have unhappy people. Unhappy, saying the situation you're in is not what France deserves. So broadly in the world, we have the unhappy who deeply love France and say 'Come on, do something, you deserve better than that.' We have the pro-Europeans who say 'We need your voice, so wake up because you're a balancing point between enormous nations that sometimes behave like predators.' And we have those who, through their activities or their past, are totally indifferent.
In that context, in the public, political, societal debate, should a business leader take positions, get involved? I was talking about this yesterday with Éric Trappier, with this opinion poll showing that 70% of French people want businesses and their leaders to express themselves and take positions.
Well, first, we know that businesses are an institution in which the French have trust. When you look at the trust index, businesses always come out on the podium, saying if there's one institution I trust, it's the business. So we know that our employees and our fellow citizens say it's an organization they trust. So we have a responsibility regarding that trust, which is yes, the ability to express points of view, but not to overdo it.
That is to say, sometimes we're asked 'But what do you think about this social issue?' I have employees who have very different views on these subjects. They represent the entire political spectrum. So I'm willing to intervene on the economic understanding of France's position and what it means for the business ecosystem. For the rest, I want Edenred's employees to be completely free in their judgment. Then, in one-on-one conversations, we can talk about it. I was at a retirement medal ceremony at Edenred France a few months ago. There was a group of about twenty people who told me, 'Ah Bertrand, we trust your judgment. Should we vote LFI?'
And I told them, 'Do you really want me to answer that question?' They said, 'Yes, we'd like to hear your answer.' And so I explained what I thought. So that, I'm willing to do one-on-one or one-to-many, but probably not publicly.
Well, we need to talk about this because you had welcomed the meal voucher reform in France. There was a reform project from the minister, the Minister of Commerce, which drove up the value, I remember, by 5%. Does the prospect of a fall or resignation of François Bayrou put this reform, which you as an industry player generally favor, into question?
Well, first, this reform is favorable for everyone. We need to salute the efforts of consultation made by the minister, which means everyone will find their place in this reform. There are a few parameters that can probably still be discussed, but overall, it's a very positive reform where we have a government saying 'We want more meal vouchers in France because it's an equity measure between those who have a cafeteria and those who don't. We want the rules to be respected, meaning it's about food at work, and we want everything to be digitized because the total cost will decrease for the networks, particularly restaurateurs, when there's no more paper. And we want a rebalancing by banning back margins that companies ask of us, which we struggle to refuse because competition kicks in, and by banning back margins, it's very good news for a very healthy relationship about who contributes to what. So this reform...'
