PARIS, April 15 (Reuters) – Emmanuel Macron proposed on Friday to define ceilings at European level against the abusive remuneration of big bosses and to work at national level for a better sharing of added value in companies, in the wake of the controversy around the remuneration of the executive director of Stellantis, Carlos Tavares.
The manufacturer resulting from the merger of PSA and Fiat Chrysler is considering compensation of around 19 million euros for Carlos Tavares for the 2021 financial year, an “astronomical” amount, deemed “shocking” and “excessive” by the president going out on franceinfo.
Recalling that Stellantis is a company under Dutch law, Emmanuel Macron stressed that a nationwide approach would not be effective in such situations.
“We must set ceilings and have governance for our Europe that makes things acceptable, otherwise society at some point will explode,” said the outgoing president, eager to reassure the left-wing electorate in view of the second round of the election. presidential election which will pit him against Marine Le Pen on 24 April.
“We must lead the fight in Europe so that at some point we have remuneration that cannot be abusive, exactly as we did to fight against tax evasion,” he continued.
“Without framing it within a range, we must be able to put a ceiling, if we do it at European level it can work,” said Emmanuel Macron.
VALUE SHARING
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who came third after the first round and whose electorate is coveted by the two finalists, proposed in his program to limit the wage gap in companies from one to twenty.
Beyond such a reform on the scale of the Twenty-Seven, Emmanuel Macron also proposes, on a national scale, to “completely change the pact for sharing added value in the company” by imposing a “link mandatory” between payment of dividends to shareholders and payment to employees of a profit-sharing, a participation, or a purchasing power bonus.
Marine Le Pen has also repeatedly estimated that the amount of compensation proposed for Carlos Tavares was “shocking”.
Questioned on this subject on Friday on BFMTV and RMC, the candidate of the National Rally judged that “one of the means of attenuating these remunerations which are out of proportion to economic life, it is perhaps precisely to bring in employees as shareholders.
“In companies like this, you have to think about a concept that would be a kind of legal reserve of titles, which would be shared by all employees on an equal basis, totally”, she proposed.
“There would not be the employees, the executives who would have more and then the employees who would be lower than them who would have less. Everyone, all the employees would be owners of a part of this legal reserve of securities”, according to the National Rally candidate.
The shareholders of Stellantis opposed on Wednesday the salary package proposed for 2021 for the management of the group, including that of around 19 million euros envisaged for Carlos Tavares for the past year. (Written by Myriam Rivet and Bertrand Boucey, edited by Nicolas Delame and Jean-Michel Bélot)