take the television, the radio, the written press or on social networks, the industry appears like, a thing where patrons fill their own pockets while they do dream of doing away with the jobs. The resignation of Carlos Ghosn is in this sense exemplary, because the comments have focused immediately on the level of his severance benefits. We can excuse the social networks not to go to the essential, this means that our level of industrial education is low, but it is difficult to have the same indulgence in respect of professionals, and we can also be astonished by the deafening silence of the world by the employers.
On this topic, read : “Jean-Dominique Senard, the ideal son in law of the CAC-40 in the wheelchair with Carlos Ghosn”
The industry transforms raw materials using energy. The human energy was replaced over time by more efficient instruments and less painful, while there was a call to human intelligence as to its strength. The new technologies allow to put at the disposal of the human brain to processing of data that allow him to refocus on the creativity and the imagination. But the equipment, however sophisticated, can know of the failures or unexpected situations, and this is where another human quality is essential, the know-how, experience.
The energy available is therefore a first crucial element of the industrial investment, and its cost is essential to determine a location. It is one of the reasons that leads me to advocate for an energy policy rigorous, economically, because up until a few years ago, it was carried out with the primary concern of the independence and competitiveness. After the oil shock of 1973, we have maintained an industrial competitiveness thanks to our low electricity costs by up to 75 % of production from nuclear power. This policy has been opposed by the anti-nuclear and now by the anti-fossil, endangering both our industrial competitiveness and our independence. Furthermore, I point to our african policy, showing that it is not responsible for : we do not give the continent an effective aid to build electrical installations and energy for its industrial development.
No business leader, no industry alive and fruitful
The men and women who make up the industrial network organize themselves into production companies. This industrial fabric comprised of the various skills, scientific, technical, financial, commercial, legal… and each entity needs a strategy, a vision, an enthusiasm, in general, personified by a business leader which allows a set of disparate to give back to make a project become common. There was no exception to this simple rule, it may shock those who defend the cooperatives or the class struggle, but they will be able to observe that the co-operatives have always needed a leader and that the struggles of the workers, and successful, have resulted in agreements, bosses-employees who have been able to achieve the industrial success. Without a business leader, whether official or ” de facto “, not industry alive and successful.
Without these activities of production, transformation of local raw materials or imported, not of a prosperous economy. This is the reason for the delay of development of the african continent, this has been the problem of China, and this is the explanation, conversely, of the chinese explosion since the industrial production is installed. The decline of our country since tens of years is directly linked to the disappearance of many factories, not replaced by new production centres. There are many explanations, of causes, to this national decrease, but it would be good that everyone understands that the most of the present evils of our society come from this progressive attrition of our industrial apparatus. In particular, we are not going to solve the cancer of unemployment without renew and develop our production, there will be no “job creation” by some miracle. Is the national industry to stop melting away and gets back to battle with the innovation, the investment, the ambition, the quality… and we will return to a country where everyone can find a place, we don’t want to look reality in the face and we continue to accuse the world, the USA, Europe, China… of their wickedness and the political leaders of their incompetence, and we will continue to regress. Of course, if other policies had been conducted in the past, if the industry had been at the centre of concerns, and non-political ecology, or the social treatment of unemployment, we would not be in there, but our country suffers from, first, the lack of industry leaders and investor confidence in industrial investment. We have had political leaders and industrialists that we deserve, and failures are the extent of this blindness general.
Comment device and, finally, ridiculous
I tried starting from specific examples to understand how the industry worked and what could be the springs of renewal. I have explained the success of Michelin, Air Liquide, Total, Dassault Systems, Legrand, Schneider Electric… adjustments spectacular Renault and Peugeot and past disasters, Pechiney, Arcelor, while the clouds were gathering around Alstom, Rhodia, Lafarge, Alcatel, hurting these companies, but also the whole fabric of industrial, economic and social dependent on them. I continue to hope that some manufacturing can be reborn from their ashes not yet extinguished, because the skills are still there, in our country, even if they have been basely abandoned by irresponsible. I argue in particular for a revival of nuclear with the recovery of turbine generators, Alstom sold to General Electric, as well as a new departure for the hydraulic national-based facilities ex-Neyrpic, ex-Alstom in Grenoble and Belfort. But this can only be achieved to the extent that the country, its leaders, its citizens, have understood all this, which allowed them to flourish, and their level of life, to know the industry, and the roots of its operation in our country and not in another, i.e. men, women, and capital investing with a taste for risk, because there is a risk that as soon as one makes an investment choice.
If the citizens and those who are the teachers well understood the necessity of the existence of an industrial fabric, of the international rules which govern them, perhaps, can we hope that, when our country is attacked in his integrity industrial, we take refuge not in the comment device and finally it is ridiculous.
We do get rowdy to the point of losing the ball for two months
The globalization has made our industrial unit in a fierce competition to which we were probably not well prepared. We thought we could get ourselves out of this by becoming the best, the defenders of the heroic world, the most moral, those who were to give the example to all peoples with a social model, a behavior is exceptional in the conflict, a kind of substance of universal consciousness. But the reality should wake us up, the Americans have launched their department of Justice to the onslaught of european industry, Germany has bent, but not broken, Siemens and Volkswagen are still there, but our Alcatel and our Alstom have gone… Now, in a capitalist world where a minority of 43.4 % is equivalent to an assumption of power not absolute, but important one, we do get rowdy to the point of losing the ball for two months without official reaction to the a friend, a capitalist, which has a large number of investments in France. Even during this period where we can only wonder about the character “nationalist” of the fate of a leader French, Carlos Ghosn, we are providing an important market through EDF in a japanese company Mitsubishi, to the detriment of Framatome… without a single mark comes from nowhere ! I remind you that Carlos Ghosn came to “save” Mitsubishi Motors by integrating it into the Renault-Nissan Alliance he was ! In this regard, the company has been led and integrated after the purchase of 34 % of Mitsubishi Motors by Nissan, which shows that the capitalism I’m talking about is the one that is current in Japan.
How to write “industry dummies” and distribute it in schools and in the circles of the press ? How to assess the state of potential readers ? It was an emergency.
(*) Loïk Le Floch-Prigent was president of Elf Aquitaine (1989-1993), Gaz de France (1993-1995) and the SNCF (1995-1996).
