Pierre Gattaz :"La dette publique augmente de 5 000 euros par seconde, c'est dingue !"

I think we were the spoiled children after the thirty glorious years. Life was beautiful, growth, full employment, etc. And suddenly, we rested, we said, 'Well, it's good, we're going to do social policy without taking into account the economy.' That, to me, is the first problem I see with France. We wanted to do social, social, social. It's very good. It's very, very good to do social policy. I am the first to do social policy. I am a boss who has kept his factories in France, who has doubled them, etc. But not without an economy. We trampled on the economy, we trampled on the company, we trampled on the basic reflexes of revenue and expenses and you have to generate profit between the two. It's quite surprising. There is a sort of detestation that has been put in place for about forty years towards work. So, you see the work that has been trampled on, the 35-hour week, it's not good. We told all sorts of nonsense about work, that it was a finished cake that had to be shared. François Mitterrand who made retirement at 60 when we were at 65, 61.5 years, an instant decrease. That costs us a fortune even today with hindsight. Dramatic measure, Pierre Gattaz, the 60-year measure with hindsight and the 35-hour week. Then after, I'm not saying the left did stupid things because the right didn't react to that. I'm sorry, Jacques Chirac who was in power for 7 and 5, 12 years, did no reform or very little, while Schröder, a man of the left, social democrat, German, did very courageous reforms in 2003 and that was the beginning of the German miracle. So I'm not doing politics. I'm just saying we wanted to dream. We dreamed of a utopian world, less work, less industry, all that. And without an economy if possible, profits are not good, it's ugly. Well, it's awful, all that. It's not true. Then after, profit is not an end in itself. Profit is a fundamental means to create well-being, to create innovation, to save the planet, to do climate, to do prosperity. That's what I defend, a humanist and ecological economy. I try to show it with Radiall. We kept the factories in France, we export 90% of our turnover. We do 500 million euros in turnover with people, engineers, skilled workers, most of them in France. And it works because I moved upmarket, because I weathered the crises, because I had nightmares, because there were times when I had no more cash, etc. I fought with my employees and we show that the company is the most beautiful human community, the most beautiful. And that's what I would say the political class, the intellectual class, even the media class, if you'll allow me, Bertrand, hasn't understood. The company is the golden goose. It's virtuous, after the family, it's the most beautiful thing because we build the future and we adapt, and on top of that, we create our own wealth and we create the country's wealth. So you see, we are hyper-virtuous compared to an administration which does things of course but which lives off the wealth we create. So we need administration. I'm not saying we need zero. We just need to understand that it's an institution that we have trampled on for 40 years by putting in place a labor code of 4,000 pages, codes of this and that. We killed, I would say, this motivation and we made a lot of people leave with things like the ISF, if you will, which was a political tax. All my competitors from Radiall, 20, 25, left France and for me, it's heartbreaking. That's why I fought at the MEDEF and today I believe in it fully because it's a wonderful country.

But yes, and I think Nicolas Dufourq said it very well in his last book, 'The Social Debt of France,' I think, where he says that half of the debt today of 3,500 billion is the cumulative social deficits. We didn't create, we did what they call 'cavalerie' (a Ponzi scheme). It's in fact, the generosity we know for retirement, the generosity we know for unemployment, there are plenty of things. It's very good to be generous, but you have to be able to finance this generosity. I am not against it at all, but you have to create the revenue before redistributing. And that's it. Today we have reached the end of the road. The debt elastic is stretched to the max. The deficit is stretched to the max and the bad reflex is to say we're going to tax even more because that is a very, very bad reflex.

It means that I meet lots of people, taxi drivers, employees, etc., who tell me, 'Mr. Gattaz, but veterinarians? My brother-in-law is a veterinarian, he tells me, but I earn less than my father, much less.' Taxi drivers tell me the same, 'My dad was a taxi driver in France 30 years ago, he earned twice what I earn.' Work must pay. Work no longer pays. Why? Because, well, there are very high levels of employer and employee charges. When you earn 100 euros, well, it costs you 200, it costs the company 200. So we financed this social model of retirement, unemployment insurance, social security, entirely generated by work, and that is the aberration. So you have work that is expensive for the company and yields little to the employee. The result? Well, people, on top of that, it cut the social elevator. So people who see rich people in the street today, they say, 'I will never be rich, I'm going to go slash their car.' So there is also this aspect, if you will, which is why we have to fight for purchasing power, but not by increasing the SMIC by 15% tomorrow morning as some parties propose, by making a collective effort to know how we can do better with less.

It finances retirement since we still retire at 62 instead of 65, 67 for some countries. So that costs you 20 billion per year in difference. Civil servant retirement is even heavier, it's even worse because there we only talk about the private sector, we never say civil servant retirement, 57% of the retirement mass is civil servant retirement. So what's terrible is that in fact, we never see it, no one talks about it. It's in the state deficit, it's not in the retirement. There are between 40 and 60 billion more per year linked to social security regimes. And no one talks about it and that is a scandal because it's our taxes that pay for all that. So if you will, we will have to collectively tell the French, do you want to continue to stay at the minimum wage all your life, for your children to be unemployed at 20% with this very generous, too generous social model that we are going to finance through debt? So it's going to end badly, or do we all make an effort, we're going to work a little more per week or per year, a little more for retirement, but it has to pay much more. I proposed 39 hours paid for 40, that is to say 40 hours, 4 hours more compared to the 35-hour week, which brings in 25% more. And I think for retirement, we should have a system like that, very incentive-based. One more year is not just earning more, it's 25% more to encourage people to work a little more. And then you have the employment rate of young people and the employment rate of seniors. Which is a real issue because it costs us a fortune. The employment rate of young people, you see, we push everyone to go to the baccalaureate in France. So then it's philosophy, it's social sciences, it's universities, it's Nanterre, etc. 25 years old, they have no job, they are all unemployed and then they march, 'Nuit Debout,' the Republic, they shout against companies, bosses, capitalism. In Switzerland or in Germany, which I know very well, 70% of kids are in apprenticeships at 17. 70%. In France, it's 5%. So if you will, if we relaunch industry, it's part of my fourth chapter of my book, we must imperatively relaunch industry to get out on top, to find more engineers, skilled workers, welders, boilermakers, turners. These are wonderful, magnificent jobs that pay well and on top of that you can become your own boss, an artisan in these jobs. So you see all these jobs that have been trampled on in France for 40 years, same, you're not good at school, you go to vocational training. Yes, it's a scandal. It's a scandal. And we push everyone to the baccalaureate. The baccalaureate is completely devalued. We push people into completely useless paths. I'm not saying philosophy is useless, but there are no jobs for sociologists, I'm not saying it's useless, there are no openings, whereas we need to re-industrialize our country. So you see, that's the employment rate of young people. We must absolutely push for apprenticeships and for seniors, I think we must do like in Germany, the Netherlands, and England, we must cap charges because it's expensive. It's true for companies that already have not great margins. So seniors cost us a lot in companies. I keep them because I have margins and because there is know-how. But sometimes, well, you make seniors leave because they cost more. Well, I think the first measure is to limit charges so it doesn't cost you much. In Germany, you can pay three for the price of two in France, same in England, because charges are capped from a certain age. It's brilliant.

Yes, fundamentally yes. Look at China which was communist with Mao Zedong with incredible poverty, etc. Deng Xiaoping in 40 years managed to rebuild an incredible empire, world number 2 GDP. It's possible. We have the engineers, we have the administrations, we have the researchers, we have everything to succeed in France. So what do I say? We must go from 1% on average of GDP per year for 20 years, which is not good, to at least 2 to 3%. How 2 to 3% growth? 2 to 3% growth. How do we do that? Without polluting, without polluting, without polluting. I'm going fast, but there are five major sectors that are as many dangers, seen by young people, especially the French, as horrible dangers but that we can turn into opportunities. Putin, Trump who doesn't love us anymore, etc. So we must re-militarize the country. We have an extraordinary heritage. Defense is a very strong axis. Besides, the technologies are dual. They go into defense but they go into aeronautics, they go into space, etc. Second major subject, the planet. Everything related to the planet, I am not at all for degrowth. I am for virtuous, innovative growth, an ecology of innovation. And there, it's energy, it's nuclear, it's all the recycling. There are plenty of things to invent. At Radiall myself, I have about thirty recycling projects to reduce my CO2 emissions that I measure. Third subject, health. Fourth subject, agri-food. Food is everything. Sovereignty issues. We have everything. Fifth major transversal subject, everything related to data, quantum, we are very strong in that. We just need to do what? Competitive competitiveness, competitive taxation for people so they stay in France, so engineers and researchers stay in France and create their companies, and secondly so companies are happy to develop, etc. If you do a Zucman at 2% to tax success, to show a very negative effect on people who succeed, well people will leave, they won't create their company in France. We must do the opposite, we must create incentives by saying we can rebuild and we can raise the industrial GDP of France from 10% today to 15%. It's possible in 15 years according to my estimates and those I worked on with my teams, 15 years, and there you create 1 million industrial jobs plus 1 million induced jobs, that is to say 2 million jobs in total.

Yes but it's in block number two, it's the optimization of these charges. What are they linked to? To a retirement where we leave earlier than everyone else. Well, you have to pay for that. Secondly, it's unemployment insurance. We are at 18 months of unemployment. All of Europe is at 12 months of declining unemployment. So there, you have another 5 or 10 billion to recover. Well, just to get to the level. Then, social security, everything is free, or supposedly free, but it costs a fortune. Some countries like Germany or Switzerland or others have put in place systems at a level. In Switzerland, you have a mandatory social security level, then a second semi-mandatory level, and a third optional level. I find it formidable to make the French responsible by saying, 'You have the right to insure yourself to take the whole thing or you can earn more but you take a small risk that you have measured, etc., and then to put things in competition.' I think social security is not good. All monolithic administrations work less well than when they are subject to competition. It's obvious. It's obvious. Look at the hospitals in Germany, they are private, they are in competition. We decided since 1986 to nationalize our hospitals. I'm not saying it's not terrible anyway. So we must put a little competition in all that which allows to lower prices and provide a service that people will pay for. There's an idea.

Yes. So if you will, there are lots of ideas on housing but first you have to stop constraining owners. Owners, it's the law of the market. They will lower prices because they are in competition. If we put standards on their heads, regulations on their heads, they will stop renting, they will stop buying and everything will be blocked. We must put back flexibility, agility, stop the standards, stop the standards on housing that drive us crazy. That's France. So that's the first point. And second point, in Switzerland again, I look at how they do it. They have systems where you don't need to bring... it's a system where you are never... you are an owner but it doesn't bring you the cash. You are in revolving, in revolving debt all the time. So you don't need to bring cash. That's an instrument that allows you to own your home without bringing the 30% or 50% that banks ask you. There are lots of ideas like that on housing and 30%... it costs us, it costs a lot of income. It's about 30 to 35% for housing. So there, there is a real subject to give back freedom, to ensure that owners rent easily, quickly, without fear of ending up with a stuck tenant. Well, it's freedom we want, you know, they need guarantees, but they need small guarantees and they need above all flexibility and agility and that's what's important. There, we are in a world of constraints that we have put in place again to protect the tenant. But we always go to excess. To protect work, we made a labor code of 4,000 pages. It's less than 200 pages in Switzerland, it's less than 400 pages in Germany. So you see, excesses are always bad. Excess tax kills tax. Excess social kills social and excess housing, urban planning kills housing. So our civil servants and our politicians must understand that. That's why if there were more people in the private sector and fewer in the public sector, I think it would change the game.

Yes. Yes. In our companies, we try to be positive, we try to have a positive vision, to get our teams on board and I find that politicians have never had a vision first. Then, it's always very sad, it's

It's always dramatic, there's no joy. We need to re-enchant work. Work is... well, there are hard jobs, of course, but it's an object of human dignity, of fulfillment. It's Maslow's pyramid. It gives you purchasing power, training, hope, and a sense of belonging to a group. And we've trampled all that. I find that politicians today have a discourse that always brings us back to the short term, and very often it's electoralist or clientelist, meaning the horizon is the next election. That's what drives me crazy today. That's why I wrote this book, 'Win More, It's Now.' It presents 30 reforms, but not ultra-liberal economic reforms, the kind from the business establishment as usual, which could be criticized, but saying no, these 30 reforms give 30% more net salary to employees, 30% in 15 years. That's the point. 30 realistic measures that you break down into four big simple ideas: win more by working more, win more by reducing the burden of charges, win more through growth, and win more by refocusing public spending and lowering taxes. That makes three promises. You say cash, hope, pride. Yes, Maslow's pyramid.

Either they're not up to the task, or they're afraid. But I don't understand, if you want popularity, including current popularity. You understand it, but you explain what's blocking it. But I don't understand what's blocking it. We have all the numbers, all the economists in the world say, here, you can make savings here, etc. We know. I propose savings that give money to people. We remain a power. We remain an economic power. That's it, we remain an economic power. But on the other hand, the debt level is increasing, you know, it's 5,000 euros per second, I did the calculation, almost 3,700 billion next year. 77 billion in debt repayment interest, and that makes, you say 5,000 euros per second. That's 5,000 euros per second for the duration of our interview. We must have spent 20 million more in debt in one hour. All this is dramatic, and yet there are plenty of solutions. These solutions are not sacrifices we need to ask of the French, they are paid efforts, but efforts to build a France that wins in 15 years. That's what's great. And so I think there are... what I don't understand is, I don't understand why we're not moving today, why there's no discourse on public spending right now, why on the social model we don't talk about it, how is it that retirement is a psychodrama every time. I feel like we're not explaining to the French where we want to go. In our companies, we spend a lot of time explaining where we want to be in 5 years, and no one talks to us about the 5, 10, 15-year vision, even though we have everything at our feet.