And now let's welcome, please, Rémy God, who will guide us through 'Consensus or Courage.' That's the question he'll explore with Bruno Le Maire, with Christelle Moran, Natacha Poloni, Patrick Pouyanné, and Arnaud Rousseau. Please applaud them. They're coming to join me.
Let's welcome our guests alongside Rémy God. Bruno Le Maire, our former Minister of the Economy, Finance, and Industrial and Digital Sovereignty. Christelle Moran, President of the Pays de la Loire region. We'll also welcome Natacha Poloni, essayist. Hello Patrick Pouyanné, of course — thank you for being with us. The indispensable Arnaud Rousseau of the FNSEA. Cher Rémy, what a lovely panel you have. So, it's promising — consensus and courage. We'll let you shed light on this for us. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome. Cher Rémy, over to you.
Thank you, Nicolas. Yes, what a wonderful panel of courageous people. I think the theme is courage or consensus — it's a small difference. Well, I'm going to perhaps cite Patrick Martin, who on several occasions in the media has spoken about courage, saying in particular that he was convinced that in 2027 the French would demand courage, and that the first act of courage is to tell the truth — the truth of today in order to prepare for tomorrow. But here we are. Tonight we're going to talk about this tension that can exist between consensus and courage. Should we dare to break with consensus in order to move forward, or should we, despite oppositions, try to find delicate positions that carry along the vast majority of the French? That's the tension we're going to discuss. So I propose we start with you, Patrick Pouyanné, because you've often insisted on the necessity of courage in leadership. Now, you're facing a context that can be described as difficult — geopolitical tensions, energy crisis, contradictory expectations regarding food security, competitiveness, and supply security. How, as CEO of Total, do you face that? What does courage look like in those situations?
I'm going to surprise you — I'm not going to oppose courage and consensus. I think what we should oppose are the excesses of courage and the excesses of consensus. The excess of consensus is conformism. That's what we need to fight against. So, how do we do it? It happens to be a good theme because I once gave a speech on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of Solvay on courage, drawing on a Harvard commencement address. So there was a text I had reflected on, and for me, courage — the first condition of courage — is having a collective vision. When I took over at TotalEnergies, my first task, together with many collaborators, was to try to answer — and I posed the question — where do we want to be in 20 years? What should TotalEnergies be in 20 years? Knowing where we wanted to go before even talking about profitability, profits, and so on. And this project is what led Total to become TotalEnergies and to say we want to be a major energy company because we want to still be one in 20 years, and that will require not only continuing to produce oil and gas — we need to keep producing oil and gas — but also electricity, and to become a major electricity producer, with 20% of our energy from electricity by 2030. Now, of course, in doing this, I satisfied nobody — neither the climate change advocates nor my shareholders, who said, 'Why do you want to do anything other than oil and gas? It's more profitable, you're very good at it, keep doing it.' So we must seek — and it's this vision, and behind it this strategy — to maintain strategic consistency, to have this vision that allows us, by the way, to respond to crises. You see, this year's crisis is one where everyone pushes me back toward oil.
What society is asking me today, everywhere, is mainly that they're afraid of running out of diesel, of gasoline. So bring us back all these petroleum products. The same people who a few months ago were telling me we need to stop investing in all that because it's the energy transition. Fortunately, we had a strategy that, by the way, was criticized but was built on two pillars: we will continue to grow in our core business, but we will also invest 4 to 5 billion per year to build the low-carbon electricity company we want to be in the long term. So that's what courage is too. During a previous debate, I became famous because I had dared to tell someone I quite like, Jean Jouzel, who rightly said that climate was a major issue — I told him, yes, but there's real life. I can tell you we're getting hit in the face with real life every day right now, because what French citizens want today is — they're very happy that TotalEnergies put a cap at 1.99 euros at the pump. We're the only oil company in the world that dared to do that. My colleagues aren't very happy with me because some other countries offer the same. So it's all about being courageous. Courage, for me, consists in looking reality in the face, and that's what I strive to do in my company if we want to progress. And God knows when you're a wealthy company, I can tell you the temptation is to sweep the dust under the rug. But you have to look at reality because that's where you find the resources to build something good, and that's what I'm trying to do, and I think we're getting there. So there you have it — courage, for me, is part of the optimism that drives me, and I think it's a deep value. But once again, one last comment on courage: it's not individual. It only has value if it's collective. You have to bring others along, because courage — that's why I said beware of the excess — it's not about systematically taking the opposite stance from everyone else. That's useless. That's easy, you isolate yourself. It's not the individual who counts, it's the collective. So you have to create the conditions for collective courage through a collective vision. That, for me, is courage.
So if I understand you correctly, courage of vision — if you can't bring people along behind you, it's a failure.
Of course, of course. You can be all alone — you're nothing. That's it. And so in your political debate, the question isn't simply having political leaders who state courageous objectives — it's that their job, like mine in my company, is to convince everyone. And it's more complicated at the scale of a country than a company, even if it's not simple, that we all need to go in the same direction, and that this courage — we're going to roll up our sleeves together and go in the same direction. That, for me, is the essence of courage.
So thank you, thank you Patrick Pouyanné. And I'm going to give the floor to Bruno Le Maire. I think you might share Patrick Pouyanné's analysis on vision, but I'm obliged to ask you a question given the catastrophic state of our finances. Do you consider that you, as Minister of Finance, or the government, or the Prime Minister, or the President of the Republic, have sometimes — all the time — lacked courage on public finances, or are things a bit more complex than that?
I think the first act of courage in politics is to be able to acknowledge one's mistakes. So, I've been applauded here many times. I hear boos today. I just want to inform the audience here that I haven't been Minister of Finance for two years. And so I take full responsibility, but if I were the sole person responsible for the degradation of public finances, it would have been enough for me to leave for the situation to improve. Yet it has continued to deteriorate for two years, placing us in the untenable situation we're in today — up against the wall and forced to make difficult decisions. I take my responsibilities, but the problem of debt, social spending, is the problem of pensions that we tried to reform and that none of the opposition parties wanted to transform. The first act of courage is to acknowledge these mistakes. The second is perhaps to go against the grain of received wisdom.
Today, it's fashionable to say that business leaders, great industrial captains, a company like Total, would be nuisances — to quote a political figure who spoke recently. I've always spoken well of Total because it's a great French company that makes France proud. I've always spoken well of LVMH because it's a great French company that creates hundreds of thousands of jobs on our territory. You must have the courage of your convictions, defend business leaders, defend those who create jobs in our country, and proudly assert that it is good to have, in addition to small and medium businesses, in addition to artisans, great companies that succeed, that make the French nation proud and powerful. Finally, the third act of courage — and here I totally agree with Patrick Pouyanné — is having a vision. I'll just add to complete what Patrick Pouyanné said: a positive vision of our country. You have to believe in the country, believe in its capabilities, believe in its ability to bounce back. We're here at the Philippe Chatrier court. I believe the motto of this court is 'Victory belongs to the most tenacious.' Those who love tennis must remember the 2025 Sinner-Alcaraz final. Three match points for Sinner. It's Alcaraz who wins in the end. We, France today, we're against the ropes. But in the end, if we make the right decisions, if we rely on our strengths — world-class scientists, low-carbon nuclear energy, successful large companies, an exceptional fabric of SMEs, farmers doing their best in a model that is unfortunately at its breaking point today — if we have the courage to reinvent the French model from A to Z rather than just patching things up, learning from our mistakes, from all the follies we've been sold — deindustrialization, industry without factories, spending more than we produce, redistributing before creating wealth — if we manage to reinvent this model, well, I guarantee you, we'll end up like Alcaraz in 2025: winners, not losers.
Is courage a key element in regaining legitimacy? Because that's what's complicated for the political class. The democratic crisis means that the legitimacy to act is difficult, and so building consensus is increasingly difficult. We can see that even a President of the Republic, elected, after 100 days his legitimacy doesn't carry much weight anymore.
I believe the moment has not come at all for consensus. I prefer to say it very sincerely. The moment has come, a few months before an extremely important election, where for the first time since 1958, incompatible visions of society are opposing each other. It's not a question of VAT rates, it's not a question of economic model, it's not a question of this or that measure — it's that the visions of society, of law, of the state, of European construction between the RN, LFI, and the governing parties are totally irreconcilable. Well, I think this is the moment not to seek consensus, but to lay our cards on the table about what we want. That's what I've just proposed. I see that what I proposed with my manifesto for another France is creating debate, but so much the better. Yes, I say we need prosperity and for that, we need to be able to completely change our model, simplify the lives of our businesses, reduce taxation as I did for seven years, be able to say to all tech companies — to catch up on our lag — you come, you set up a research and development laboratory, you open a factory, you create jobs: zero tax, zero charges, zero taxes until you're profitable. Yes, it takes courage to say that the authority of the state requires a complete reorganization of our country. Ten ministers, not 48, fewer parliamentarians. A veto right for the Minister of Finance. I draw lessons from my experience so that the Minister of Finance doesn't wake up one morning learning that after making 300 million euros in savings, some minister has decided on 2 billion euros in additional spending. Restore order in the chain of command and authority in the state. It's essential for our fellow citizens to find their bearings. And finally, having the courage to say that alone, facing China, facing the United States, we are dead. I have 30 years of political career behind me. I know well that the word 'federation' is an ultra-unpopular word in France. Well, I put it before you and I tell you with great conviction: if France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Poland don't come together in the form of a federation of nation-states — to have the same taxation, to have a capital union, to have the money necessary to invest, to implement investments on the key issues — tomorrow, Europe, France, will be a colony of China and a colony of the United States.
Thank you. Christelle Moran, as President of the Pays de la Loire region — for those who didn't know you, we discovered you through an enormous controversy because you had the courage, for once, to take on subsidies in your region's budget. It caused an enormous uproar. You need to tell us about the lessons you drew from this episode where you dared to cut cultural subsidies, dared to say that if we wanted to maintain investment, we needed to make savings elsewhere, and so on.
Good evening everyone. I don't know why you invited me, but I have a little idea. Perhaps to respond first to the subject of the panel: courage or consensus? I think it won't surprise anyone that my heart leans toward courage. Courage not for authority's sake but for responsibility's sake. I think the time for consensus is behind us, and the urgency we all have is precisely to have this courage. Obviously, first and foremost, it's the country's debt. 3,500 billion in debt. Now you'll tell me we have 3,500 billion in debt but health, security, justice, schools — everything's fine. We tell ourselves it's not that serious, which is not the case. Just look at a few rankings. The future PISA rankings for France are a catastrophe. Look, a few days ago, it was about unemployment, and notably youth unemployment — for 42 years, and it shocks nobody. Perhaps at the time of presidential elections in France, youth unemployment between 15 and 25 percent. Can you imagine? Between 15 and 25 percent. When the president of MEDEF says 'The great national cause must be youth,' he's entirely right, and all these issues are connected, because reducing the debt — we owe it to our children.
But as a preamble, before talking about courage, for me there's a necessity: first, to tell the truth. I think it's essential to tell the French the truth. And I think here, for once, there's no consensus, notably in the political class — just look at the vote on the 2026 state budget, or certain statements made a while ago where one could erase the debt with a wave of a magic wand. No. There's first a primary point for me that is essential: telling the French the truth, and then giving meaning — giving meaning to our political action. I think obviously the challenge of education, of our young people — they are the future skills in companies. But I think — and Bruno just said it — I don't, as a regional president, have a regional or national outlook. You have to look at what's happening in the world. You also have to travel. I think that's perhaps what some parliamentarians are missing — traveling, seeing what's happening. You have the United States, you have China — we're in a period of transformation, mutation, revolution, call it what you want — but we don't want to see the passing bullets. France, Europe must take full responsibility, especially on artificial intelligence. We mustn't be afraid of it.
I think it's a collective responsibility, once again, especially in proposals. You don't make something new with something old. You have to look at the world we're in. We're in 2026 and the coming years. And finally comes the courage to make decisions. And making decisions — perhaps sometimes in the political class, it's the fear, the fear of the next electoral deadline, the clientelism, and so on. And to come to my budget — the 2025 regional budget that caused a lot of noise at the regional level and indeed nationally — when I made this budget, I did it like any business leader in this room or like any head of household: when you have 100 and overnight you have 50, you don't keep spending 100. Or otherwise that's called the state. And so I'm sorry, but this debt — reducing this debt is a collective responsibility, and it's not only at the state level. I was just attending a panel with other regional presidents. Yes, local authorities have their share of responsibility. I can't stand it when the associations of mayors, departments, and regions say 'don't touch local authority grants.' Me, the period we're going to live through — because it will be extremely difficult — I think it's an opportunity. You know, 'crisis' in Chinese means 'opportunity' — an opportunity to do better with less and the efficiency of our public policies.
And so this budget — when I face a wall where my revenues are declining and at the time the government is asking for efforts from all local authorities, I say yes, we'll participate in the effort too. And the choice that was before me — and I remember at that time, I canceled all my appointments and I got my hands dirty, as I call it. I looked line by line, and somewhere among all the criticisms, all the reproaches I received and still receive, the only reproach I'll accept is: why didn't I do it before? And when you look at the subsidy system — when I say we're addicted to public spending, I can tell you I was quite surprised because you have professionals of subsidies and they feel it's always guaranteed. You got it and it's for life. Well no, it's not for life. And so the choice I made — without getting into the technical side — but you have two columns: operating expenses and investment. And I chose to preserve investment. I'm the only region in France in 2025 where the investment budget — but that's not talked about in the media, of course, not at all — where my investment budget increased by 6%, while in other regions it decreased by 14%. Because investment is about preparing the future. Because investment means companies can innovate. And that's a major issue. On the other hand, I cut all subsidies. If I insist on this, it's because there were many controversies, notably in a sector called culture. No, I didn't only cut culture, and I'm not anti-culture. I cut in culture, I cut in sports, I cut in the environment, I cut in the economy too, and so on. All subsidies — meaning I stopped all subsidies in the region to maintain a high level of investment. But then what happened — culture is a totem and you don't touch it, and so on. But today, I did a study and I'll just give you the example of culture. All of this is just sprinkling. There's no efficiency in these policies, and moreover, generally culture is heavily subsidized in big cities where culture is already present. But the territories are totally forgotten. Well, that's not what I do.
Christelle Moran, let me just cut in — I'll give you a very quick follow-up, a short answer before passing the floor to Natacha Poloni. Does this truth-telling language, this courage of truth, pay off? Because I can give you another example: a Prime Minister who made debt a national cause — it didn't really end well for him. Yet he did debt pedagogy, and it didn't go well. In your case, did it pay off — meaning was it seen, appreciated?
It's not political calculation. When I made this budget, once again, I wasn't thinking about the 2028 regional election. If I did that, I obviously wouldn't do anything at all, like most politicians today. No, I did it once again out of responsibility. And what mustn't be forgotten is what I call the silent majority. And I did just one study — a study in my region after this budget vote — to ask the inhabitants of my region. 80% of the inhabitants of the region were favorable — are favorable to the decisions that were taken. So you mustn't be afraid, you mustn't live with fear, you must live with your convictions, with your gut, and especially with this determination and this desire for our regions, for France to do better, because it has all the assets. And so I believe in that. And so you mustn't be afraid. Just a little courage.
Natacha Poloni. Just a small parenthesis — on September 23rd you're releasing a book called 'Courage and Heart' because you used the word 'heart' on this subject. Natacha Poloni, that's why I'm thinking of it. Patrick Martin gave a little wink — I don't know if he's aware — but he spoke of heart and courage, and so I salute him for that. You're very much on the line that we first need to have the courage to say what the state of the country is. And you say also — I'm going to quote your book — 'A Strained France.' Bruno Le Maire, I should have cited your book too, which is great that you signed — but there you go, you say in your book, 'A Strained France: I don't believe for a second that the French are resistant to enthusiasm and effort, but they want to know why.' That's it — courage, first of all, the first courage.
Let's say that the prerequisite, indeed, is to ask ourselves why we fight, why we want to fight. And I think that in fact, for many — for an immense majority — we want to fight simply because we love this country and we have that in common. Perhaps it needs to be recalled, because we set people against each other, because the easy thing is to go talk to one constituency or another. Of course, when you're at the RN, you're not necessarily — you'll be tempted to say things a bit different from what you'd say to other social groups. And that's what politicians have been doing for too long. Yet the link between a small artisan, an employee, a teacher, a nurse, a small or medium business owner, a large group CEO, is that they are French and we want to perpetuate this country. I was long struck when I reflected on the absolutely gigantic courage of those men and women who fought behind Free France for a cause — for the perpetuation of this country and against absolute horror. I would note when we listen to those who joined De Gaulle in London in June 1940 — they don't say they had courage. They say, 'I couldn't do otherwise. It was my duty, and I couldn't have acted differently.' And De Gaulle told them, 'I don't thank you. You simply did your duty,' which, for once, was perhaps a bit harsh. But what I want to say by this is that courage is born from the conviction that we are responsible — and notably responsible for future generations, for our children, for those to whom we will bequeath this country.
Yet when we look at the indicators, the figures today, they are tragic and they are scandalous. And the feeling that most French people have is a feeling of waste — absolutely gigantic waste. It probably needs to be recalled. Indeed, we are about to enter the fourth consecutive year where France's GDP per capita is below the European average. It's a disgrace. We have 10-year borrowing rates at 4% — when you reach 4%, it's bankruptcy. We have an industry below 10% of GDP. That is to say, roughly, we're impoverishing ourselves, we're weakening ourselves in Europe, even as Europe is the region of the world with the least growth. And we find ourselves in a situation where ultimately nobody seems responsible, since — we'll see it tomorrow because there's a debate between candidates — they'll come and explain that they have the solutions. But when you've exercised what are called responsibilities, it's very good indeed to acknowledge that you may have made mistakes. Yes, you must. The question is to know why you made them. And that's where it needs to be said. Consensus exists. It exists in certain domains, in certain circles. It exists precisely when you get used to pleasing your audience. So in fact, one must also be able to say in an assembly like this one that when public aid to companies benefits 70% to large groups, while SMEs and mid-cap companies — it's the absolute urgency and they're the ones who need it — it needs to be redirected. One must say, for example, that — yes, I know it's uncomfortable to talk about statism, and Patrick Martin did so earlier — but we are not, alas, in a statist country. The state no longer plays its role. So it comes to meddle — yes, it comes to explain at how many centimeters we should place fire extinguishers, which is absolutely astounding and ridiculous. It comes to impose standards, and standards that above all destroy the country's industrial fabric and productive fabric, instead of truly protecting where it needs to. But the question that arises is: why doesn't the state play its role? Why doesn't it extend its reach in terms of strategy, in terms simply of planning? It shouldn't meddle in economic life. It must, however, foresee which areas will necessarily require spending. I'll give an example. When a state that hasn't...
It was predicted that we would need air conditioning because climate change is here, and because we have hospitals and schools where it reaches 40 degrees in the summer and people can't work, we lose productivity, and living conditions become unbearable. Air conditioning is a fact, and we're waiting for the last French air conditioning manufacturer to be bought by an American-Japanese group. That's why — and we let it be bought without requiring skills transfers, training, and research and development on French soil to recreate an ecosystem. So the question is how we're going to wake up all the social bodies, all of France, and how we're going to move not toward consensus but toward concessions, because we'll need to make them. To lift up this country, which is in a dramatic state, everyone needs to roll up their sleeves.
And that's the challenge of the coming months — defining how we're going to conduct a production policy, because otherwise we're dead. And that requires understanding that even though for years, when we defended the idea of, say, a bit of protective production, we were considered protectionist and therefore totally outdated. Well, we need to say it: the United States and China practice the worst kind of protectionism. The worst. And if we don't defend our production tool, we'll miss the last cultural revolution, which is the last industrial revolution — that of artificial intelligence. So policies exist. Policies require the state to do its job, to defend producers of all kinds — I don't say entrepreneurs, I say producers — and to ask the French to play the game and fight for their country. The word was used by Patrick Martin — audacity. We need stubbornness. I'll quote Victor Hugo: 'The stubborn are the sublime. He who is only brave has only one access. He who is only valiant has only one temperament. He who is only courageous has only one virtue. To persist in the truth is greatness.' It's not about flattering the public; it's about uniting the French around a majority principle rather than flattering a clientele and hoping that the other side will be a bit more detested so we can continue the same policies.
A very small follow-up for a brief answer. Is there a majority for this? Because in our debate, there's still the idea that trying at all costs to seek a majority, to bring everyone along, ultimately leads to a minimal policy. Is there a majority expectation among the French for a particular project, a particular vision?
