Corporate insolvencies in France largely exceeded in May and over a year their level before the Covid-19 pandemic, except for micro-enterprises, the Banque de France reported on Wednesday.
The number of bankruptcies, which had fallen to historically low levels with the business support measures taken during the health crisis, has thus started to rise again since the start of 2022.
All companies combined, over the last twelve months, the central bank has counted 47,231 failures, up 45.8% compared to May 2022, compared to 51,145 failures recorded in 2019.
The number of companies placed in liquidation or receivership is thus only 7.7% lower than in 2019.
But with the exception of the micro-enterprise and indeterminate size categories, which account for more than 9 out of 10 insolvencies, all the other categories are now well above their pre-crisis level.
The Banque de France has thus counted 41 failures of large groups and medium-sized companies (ETI) during the last 12 months compared to 26 in 2019, an increase of 57.7%.
The increase over the same period even reached 60.2% for SMEs with between 10 and 49 employees and 49.4% for those with less than ten.
In April, the specialist firm Altares for its part estimated that business failures had returned in the first quarter of 2023 to their pre-crisis level.
According to figures released Wednesday by the Banque de France, the rate of increase in failures, however, slowed in May, with 664 failures more than in April, against an increase of more than 1,500 failures between March and April.
Compared to May 2022, the rise in insolvencies is the strongest (89.3%) for small businesses with between 10 and 49 employees.
By sector, the increase is most vigorous for the hotel and catering industry (78.8%), which had been the subject of administrative closures but also massive public aid during the health crisis.
The rise in failures is also very pronounced in the industry. With a 56.6% increase over one year, their level now exceeds that of 2019 by a short margin.