Reindustrialize France. This is one of Emmanuel Macron’s main objectives. On Thursday, the Head of State also presented his strategy to accelerate the industrial attractiveness of the country, in particular through a greener industry. On Friday, he also went to Dunkirk to formalize the establishment of a gigafactory of electric batteries by the Taiwanese group Proligium, which should allow the creation of 3,000 jobs in the north. Guest of the Grand Rendez-vous d’Europe 1 / CNEWS / Les Échos, the former great business leader, Loïk Le Floch-Prigent, returned to the subject. And for him, Emmanuel Macron “is above ground, he does not know the industry, does not know how it is developing”.
“Profound ignorance on the part of politicians of what industry is”
The man who led Elf Aquitaine or Gaz de France considers that there is a “deep ignorance on the part of politicians of what industry is. Industry is not about putting money in no matter how, anywhere; it’s not to say ‘that’s true, that’s not green’, insists Loïk Le Floch-Prigent at the microphone of the Grand Rendez-vous. “Industry is people who want to do something. First, you have to try not to stop them”.
For the former president of the SNCF, “today, people who want to do things are prevented, they are prevented by the administrations, by the militants of the regional directorates of the environment, by the texts, the standards and by the fact that they have controls in all directions,” he explains.
For Loïk Le Floch-Prigent, the difficulty for manufacturers would come from the fact that “we continue to define industry as something that is dirty, which is not good and which poses problems”, he considers , taking the example of “green industry”.
“We must simplify the life” of industrialists
On the contrary, the former business leader would like to see a simplification of the rules in terms of industry. “We must simplify life, not prevent and try to have civil servants who are not anti-industry political activists […]and look in [l’ensemble] standards what are the contradictory injunctions”, he hopes, while criticizing “a complete mess. We believe that putting in the money will solve all the problems.”
For him, Emmanuel Macron “does not know how the industry develops. It does not come with money, with aid, with subsidies and people who say ‘we have to do this or that’. What he necessary, it’s people who want to do something”, insists Loïk Le Floch-Prigent.