Roland Lescure says it himself, he has already worked at Bercy. It was thirty years ago, he was a young administrator of INSEE, just appointed to the direction of forecasting. And he had done “biggest forecasting error” never committed, said the new Minister Delegate for Industry, Monday, July 4, during the handover ceremony at Bercy. And for good reason: the good growth in GDP then expected by the economists of the ministry for the year 1993 was swept away by a recession caused by a crisis in the European monetary system… “A memory that you won’t forget. »
The former chairman of the Economic Affairs Committee at the National Assembly, who entered politics with Emmanuel Macron in 2017, therefore joined the powerful Ministry of Economy and Finance on the occasion of the post-legislative reshuffle, with a portfolio presented as strategic for the coming five-year term, industrial sovereignty being at the heart of the political priorities defined by the Head of State.
“The secular decline of industry is not inevitable”wanted to believe, Monday, Roland Lescure, who promised to tackle the “transversal subjects” of the sector, which are the difficulties of recruitment, training, the reindustrialization of territories and the challenges linked to the energy transition. A way to bring into existence a ministry often confined to the management of industrial restructuring files, particularly in the face of a minister as exposed as Bruno Le Maire. He will also have to ensure that the reduction in production taxes promised by Emmanuel Macron during the campaign, intended primarily for industrial companies, is implemented, while the new political configuration resulting from the legislative elections promises to be less favorable.
“We like him”
His appointment was well received by business circles, who know him for his work on the Economic Affairs Committee and as rapporteur for the Pacte law, a text promulgated in 2019 which aimed to modernize the French economy and give more social dimension to tricolor capitalism. “We like him”assured, Monday, a member of the employers. “We are satisfied to see that major sectors such as industry, trade or digital are taken into account in this new government”, reacted, for his part, Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux, the president of Medef. After the presidential election, Emmanuel Macron was, in fact, content to appoint two ministers to Bercy – Bruno Le Maire and Gabriel Attal as Minister Delegate for the Budget – reserving the possibility of completing the various portfolios after the legislative elections, at the chagrin of business circles.
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