Tribune. China and its powerful corporations are said to threaten to rule all of the world’s industrial sectors. In order to face these new giants, it is tempting to rely on industrial concentration in order to see the emergence of national, or even European, champions. In industries with strong economies of scale, obtaining a critical size is a necessary condition for increasing investment capacities and meeting digital and environmental challenges: this is the argument invoked for the recent mergers between Alstom and Bombardier in the rail, PSA-Opel then PSA-FCA in automotive, Safran and Zodiac Aerospace in aeronautics, or in progress between Suez-Veolia in water and waste, TF1 and M6 in the media.
The “national champions” are thus supposed to concretely carry out government policies for the development of the national economy and the protection of sovereignty. But in a globalized and deregulated economy, can large autonomous groups become “national champions” in the absence of vision and strategic planning?
A policy of “national champions” emerges at the turn of the 1960s. It was then for the State to choose firms, public or private, which would be able to pull the industry upwards. Airbus was thus gradually formed through mergers, Renault was in fact the national champion of the automobile as a nationalized company, others were created from scratch, as in aerospace around the coordinating role. of the National Center for Space Studies. Supported by an interventionist state (but not despotic) and civil servants trained in prestigious engineering schools capable of working with the private sector, these companies not only achieved France’s economic objectives (jobs, foreign trade), but also its objectives. political and social.
Change of doctrine
From the 1980s, the public power gradually abandoned its champions, whose destinies would diverge. Some will get away with privatization, such as Renault and later Airbus, in an attempt to “trivialize” in the eyes of private investors. Others, like the electronics giant Thomson-CSF, will be dismantled to be resold in small pieces. In both cases, these large groups emancipate themselves from state policy.
The State shareholder changes doctrine. Rather than directing the development of the firm, it supports it, that is to say validates the policy of the company. It is a complete reversal of the relationship between the State and its “champions”. Counting the State among the shareholders is therefore no longer a guarantee for employees of having an ally on the board of directors capable of opposing the destruction of jobs or cuts in research and development (R&D) budgets. .
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