While the government and parliamentarians are now working to successfully end the health crisis, the time has come to look at the tens of billions of euros of credits granted without counting to companies to prevent cascading bankruptcies. A Senate information report, entitled “How to successfully exit from state guaranteed loans?” », Examined on Wednesday 12 May by the finance committee, draws up a positive assessment of this massive emergency financing co-produced by the State and by the banks, but is worried about the risk of ” time bomb “.
First observation: companies rushed to their bank during the first confinement. Almost 40% of them took out a loan guaranteed by the State (PGE) between March and December 2020 – and even 50% of the actors most severely affected by the crisis, in the hotel and restaurant industry or the hospitality industry. transport equipment. The amounts thus reached 5% of GDP last year, less than in Spain or Italy (respectively 9% and 8% of GDP), but much more than in Germany (1% of GDP). At the end of April 2021, nearly 138 billion euros of EMP had thus been granted to more than 670,000 companies.
If this oxygen balloon has been a lifesaver, it has come to support certain sectors already showing “A very high level of debt, for accommodation and catering, and particularly low cash flow for the retail sector, less than one month’s turnover for half of the companies and eight days for a quarter of between them “, underlines, in his report, Senator Jean-François Husson (Les Républicains).
“Cascading effects”
The general rapporteur of the Senate finance committee notes that some of our neighbors have sought to further spare their economic fabric. While several states, including Germany, have shown themselves to be more generous in direct aid, French companies have kept a significant share of the cost of the crisis at their expense. “Estimated at 22%”, compared to 7% for the European Union average and 0% in Germany.
Therefore, can the risk of corporate debt distress call into question the ability of the French economy to rebound? The threat remains remote as long as measures to support the economy continue. “The” freezing “of the French economy is particularly strong”, points out the Senate report, since the drop in business failures reached 39% in France (between 2019 and 2020), against an average of – 21% within the European Union. This results in a higher proportion of “hidden” failures in France, “With 22,500 failures that would not have occurred in 2020”.
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