2023-05-11 17:17:00
Emmanuel Macron wants to speed up “the mother of battles”. After the stormy three months of the pension reform, the head of state is trying to regain control of the political agenda by doubling down on reindustrialization. During a long speech at the Elysée Palace this Thursday, May 11, the Head of State unfolded his reindustrialization strategy for the next four years of his second term. Surrounded by an audience of ministers and business leaders, he made some announcements on the green industry bill which will be detailed during the Council of Ministers next week. “The battle for reindustrialization is politically and geopolitically key. We need more work, capital and technical progress to have an answer to climate and biodiversity”said the forties.
Before detailing this plan, he praised his record of the last six years in terms of macroeconomic policy, ensuring that France had created 300 factories over the last five years following having destroyed 600 over the period 2008-2016. He also intends to occupy the field this Friday by going to Dunkirk to visit the Aluminum factory. “In the last 20 years, this territory has lost more than 6,000 jobs, in the next few years, around 2030, they plan to create nearly 16,000 industrial jobs”, recently explained his entourage. Next Monday, he will roll out the red carpet to 200 business leaders in the prestigious setting of the Palace of Versailles for the Choose France summit. The president must announce a “record” amount of investments.
One billion euros to free up industrial land
The question of land is particularly burning to trigger this reindustrialisation. The objective of zero net artificialisation (ZAN) in 2020 enshrined in the Climate Law has provoked lively debates in recent months on the preparation of the green industry bill. As a reminder, the State had appointed at the beginning of the year the prefect Rollon Mouchel-Blaisot responsible for providing concrete proposals on this highly explosive subject.
During his speech, Emmanuel Macron announced an envelope of one billion euros which will be invested by the Banque des Territoires to free up available industrial land. “It’s regarding having a national strategy to obtain France 2030 sites. We need around 20,000 to 30,000 hectares to massively reindustrialize. However, France has more than 100.00 hectares of wasteland available. We must tackle these sites by depolluting them. We will identify these sites with the communities”, said Emmanuel Macron. The government also wants to speed up procedures by reducing the time required to obtain permits to nine months. “The aim is to halve the time it takes to obtain permits. We must speed up without deregulating environmental procedures. It would be inconsistent. We have to put all the procedures in place in parallel,” he added.
A green industry tax credit
On the tax front, Emmanuel Macron intends to pursue his supply policy by lowering taxes on businesses. It confirmed the abolition of the value added contribution (CVAE) for companies in 2024. “France is going to set up a green industry tax credit for batteries, heat pumps, solar panels, wind turbines. This will help trigger 20 billion euros of investment by 2030,” he announced. On the other hand, Emmanuel Macron did not give the details and the conditions of eligibility for this tax credit.
The Minister of the Economy should unveil the outlines of this new tool at the end of the Council of Ministers. On the research tax credit, Emmanuel Macron did not announce greening while this option was on the table. A preserve of certain business circles, the effectiveness of this tax niche is disputed by the Court of Auditors and certain economists. Some companies had even asked for a reform of this credit, citing stricter conditions.
An ecological bonus
The other major announcement in Emmanuel Macron’s plan concerns the establishment of an ecological bonus. “It is a very strong change in our policy”, insisted the president. This tool should “promoting the production of vehicles in Europe”. “Why would we be the only region in the world to support the production of vehicles by other partners? », he continued. This bonus will have to take into account the carbon footprint of vehicle manufacturing.
Directly inspired by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of the Biden plan in the United States, this measure considered protectionist might be a turning point in European economic policy. But this bonus might take time. “If we told the Commission to suddenly change all the rules of the game of competition, we would not succeed. We will have to adapt our competition rules as we did for semi-conductors and critical materials”warned European Commissioner Thierry Breton in charge of industry, also present at the event.
700 million euros to redo the training map
Finally, the last important aspect mentioned by Emmanuel Macron concerns learning, training and skills. “60,000 jobs are unfilled in the industry”, recalled Emmanuel Macron. To reduce this deficit, the former Minister of the Economy is counting on the reform of vocational high schools presented last week. “Reindustrialisation is a tremendous opportunity for vocational colleges. We must close the sectors without outlets and open sectors where there are. We are going to invest in zero dropouts in vocational high schools,” he pointed out. He also wants “bringing schools and universities closer to the business world” et “also to accelerate the opening of training courses for industrial professions”. Projects that might take years to materialize.
French industry in a few figures
French industry counts 260,000 businesses, including 84,000 micro-enterprises according to INSEE. These establishments employ 3.1 million employees, i.e. a quarter of employees in the non-agricultural and non-financial market sector. The wealth produced by these companies is relatively large (1.100 billion euros for a turnover of 291 billion euros in 2020) even though they represent only 8% of companies. These firms are more outward-looking than other sectors. They realize 37% of their export turnover, i.e. twice as many as all companies according to the statistics institute.
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