And the principal residenceIt is the same

The approach of the presidential election, "Les echos" launched a series of major discussions on the themes that will dominate the campaign. Monday morning, five players in the economy came to discuss with Nicolas Sarkozy in globalization. They to observe implications through their own activities and expect specific answers to the policy. Aid to firms, taxation, employment contract, Community preference, reciprocity, re-industrialization: the President of the UMP says his project and unveils what he wants to take.

MOLEUX ERIC.France, globalization is too often perceived as a threat. I have four facilities in France, one in Turkey, two Hungary, one in China. I opened them to get clients, not to destroy the France employment. Why policy does help better our compatriots understand globalization It is a fact that must be accepted.

I do not much like your expression "policies". Me, I do not say "patterns", as if it were a mass informed. Acknowledge that, in policy, there are men of greater or lesser quality! But I agree with you on this point: it doesn't have to be for or against globalization. It is a fact.

This is a phenomenon which exists since a long time, but is accelerating: economies become more interdependent, new Giants appear. It is the reality. A reality which has advantages and disadvantages. I am not of those who, say dazed, globalization, it is great, and which brands of "cretins" those who think the contrary. Globalization is access of the hundreds of millions of people to progress, it can take-off from countries such as the Brazil, the India, China. It promotes access to information for everyone. But it also reflects a frenzied operating resources of the planet and it entails restructuring leaving aside men, women and the territories. Relocation is not a harmless phenomenon. You are right, Sir, to say that this is not because you open factories abroad that you destroy jobs: to win customers, business leaders must increasingly produce close their markets. But there are territories, women and men who are marginalized into the mainstream of globalization. We cannot let them down. On the contrary, we need evidence of a great political voluntarism. I do not agree with those who say that deal with globalization, there is nothing to do. Globalization makes our unbearable weaknesses. The 35-hour is the only product that is perfectly inexportable. There is not a country in the world that have copied us. Still, this should encourage us to think. The 35-hour are a disaster in a globalized world, but no one can say that it is globalization which is responsible for this disaster.

E. M. recently, one of my clients, a company of the CAC 40, delocalized, which resulted in the closure of one of my workshops, which had employed twenty people. I had do me alone. I even could not use his cell for reclassification. Would it not normal that there is a sharing of responsibilities between large enterprises and SMEs

I am for conditionality for grants and aid: any company benefiting from grants public, national, regional, local, European, must undertake to repay if it does not meet its obligations and is not evidence of a minimum of ethics on the dismissal. This is not the same thing to dismiss when it is taken by the throat, and that cannot be done otherwise, and move to raise the CAC 40. I support a modulation of the taxation of companies with their employment policy. This is not the same thing to reclassify the world and to the retirement or termination of employment at the expense of the taxpayer. Finally, with regard to SMEs, I would like to be less naïve and acceptance to practice France and Europe that Americans are doing very well: it tax not in the same manner that they manufacture and products they import. And this does not prevent us praise the great liberal power are the United States. There are also there a law that guarantees to small businesses, non-price conditions, a part of the procurement. I request that be the same in France and in Europe. For me, the word "Community preference" is not a dirty word. The word "protection" either.

E. M. you have recently spoken about relocation, of "rogue bosses." Do you not regret this expression

No, I still and I sign. I have enough that the behaviour of some put ground efforts and results of others. I support a system of values that values work and boldness. Retirement hat, when it is two years in a company, I do not understand. Golden parachutes either. If it does not succeed, must assume its responsibilities. Otherwise, it is our whole system of values which is made by land.

E. M. SMEs need to be more supported for export by the financial system. What do you recommend

In France, the State is too indebted, but individuals are not enough. Blaming economic actors on the debt is a serious error, because a country who borrows not to invest is a country that does not believe in its future. Instead of putting public money on funding of early retirement or redundancy plans, I would like that it puts it more on the financing of projects. For example, I want to develop the mortgage credit in France. This is what allowed to support economic growth in the United States. I also that the State uses his credit for endorsement and guarantee loans for investment. I can only see advantages in that it is guarantee of a business leader for its first investment.

E. M. today, it does swear by services. Is it not time to recall that the France still has a future industrial

First, it happens that the services are harder to outsource overseas. It must therefore be careful. For my part, I much acted for the industry when I was at Bercy: to bring Sanofi Aventis; I fought to save Alstom to disappearance; I created the poles of competitiveness. Because I believe in the absolute need to maintain a powerful industry. The France has an industrial memory to back up. It took decades to create this know-how. Is not that it lost a few months. He must help her keep, but I do not like the end of economic patriotism, which is much too defensive. What I am defending, me, it is the right for the France to have a genuine industrial strategy. I am so the State selects ten major sectors such as energy, pharmacy, communications, etc. And he put the package to develop them into champions. I would add that this has nothing to do with the size of firms: it can be a very small company and a world champion. At Bercy, it told me was to set the creation of a pole of competitiveness to at least 1 billion of turnover: it is completely absurd! We can be very small and global.

FRDRIC BEDIN. In the Anglo-Saxon funds interested in French companies, how react with you

We need and it is the liberal that I am who said of a public financial instrument for equity in strategic companies, of which the base and the heart could be the Caisse des Dépôts. This is not to make the Meccano, but to help sectors or undertakings at a given time, who need a hand. This is what I did for Alstom. If it was not the De Gaulle plan for energy, the France has no nuclear power plants. Moreover, it must create favourable tax conditions for French development of pension funds. Finally, I find it very curious that Europeans themselves are so hard to create a powerful currency the euro and they are struggling to not be used. Is it need remember use among Americans of the dollar and Japanese yen I am for the euro, and for the independence of the European Central Bank. But monetary weapons must not only be used to prevent the risk of inflation. It must be at the service of growth.

F. B. How do you influence the ECB while respecting its independence

I am not confusing independence and indifference. I saw how Mr. Greenspan discussed three times a week with US Treasury Secretary. But nobody thinks that the Federal Reserve Bank is not independent. The currency is not a subject so confidential that it should be the exclusive jurisdiction of the bankers.

F. B. Fiscal and social competition, you have recently issued the idea of creating a social VAT.

It is

an extremely difficult subject, on which I am, indeed, very hesitant. I look at the fact that Angela Merkel. I know that the Denmark VAT is 25. I listen, I think. Perhaps a solution would be to talk with our European partners. Dare to at least ask the question, because there must not be taboo topics in economic matters. We ask if taxing imports as would the social VAT is a relevant idea to finance our social systems.

F. b. Taxer imports, is it not a return to protectionism

I would like that in a major democracy, could advance ideas without be cast. Between protection and protectionism, I seek a balanced way. It is not ideology, it is realism.

F. B. Globalization, it is also the opportunity to attract foreign locations France and create jobs. How to boost this component "offensive" Could we not launch a vast campaign to defend the brand "France"

Before defending the brand "France", it must be especially to reconcile the country with the capital, success, ambition, promotion. I want that the France is a young country, that is, the dynamic class of the population considers that it has a future. I do not accept that young people do rhyme success with expatriation. Need to reform the tax system to ensure that work pays, and that the risk is rewarded. Taxation, this is the consequence of a system of values, and I conduirai the campaign on values. One can change the situation in six months. I do not understand the relentlessness that we make to the prosperity of the Belgium, the Luxembourg, Monaco, England leaving to settle the most dynamic French. Expatriation of Professor Montagnier was a true scandal. He was supposedly too old to work in France, but quite young to be paid in the United States. It is this status which is old and need to dust off. Thus, I am for the suppression of the rights of succession, because leaving the product of a lifetime's work to his children, it is consistent with the idea that I am of the work and family.

F. B. A total deletion

Discuss the terms and conditions: what matters is the idea. I am for the taxation of those who have the most money. Not issue delete the wealth tax, for example, but the tax on estates, is different. Equality of opportunity, this is not to go the heritage of one who has worked all his life; equality of opportunity, this is to ensure that the child who was born into a family with no heritage has the same chance of success than another.

F. b. Trouvez you normal that appointing fortune in business is taxed, then only that invested in works of art, which creates no jobs, is exempt

Non. It is Laurent Fabius. I dispute the State the right to say that such investment is better than another.

F. B. And the principal residence

It is the same. For what reasoning should be totally exempt principal residence It cannot be deplore that the France lack of shareholders and encourage those who have invested in stone. On the other hand, may be considered to increase the franchise on a principal residence to account for the increase in prices of real estate.

But taxing real cultural revolution lies elsewhere: to promote the work, I propose the total exemption of social charges and taxes on overtime. Today, there is no enough overtime, not because there is no work, but because the contributions being déplafonnées and the salary of the extra hour higher what is normal , this is much too expensive.

VALRIE LOISEL. What do you do for those employees who have twenty or thirty years, who are suddenly laid off and falling into depression Need them real answers, because they are completely shattered.

A number of employees take the shock of globalization into full figure. They are in distress, because they feel abandoned. But, beside jobs lost, others to create. It must therefore develop mobility and focus on training. It continues to tell the French that they must be mobile, but everything is being done to impede this mobility. When you sell your apartment, you can see that between the rights of mutation and the notary fees you are lose much. Therefore completely rethinking the taxation and very clearly the question of transfer rights. Secondly, we need to help the forgotten training, SME employees and those who have received that initial training. This is why I propose the creation of a training account, which would be attached not to the job of being but the person, and that would be rechargeable the professional life.

Must be finally laid-off workers enjoy best allowances of unemployment, but on a condition: the obligation to seek employment to become much more severe. It should be so that the job seeker can not refuse more than three job offers, that everyone is obliged to seek employment, to exercise an activity or to accept training really. The company cannot help that is not out.

V. L. At Vitré, all plants that employ women close. Then where do you want that they go They have children, their husbands works or doesn't work, unfortunately. Or only in acting. How to believe in the future

When we visit your plants in Britain, one is struck by the importance of women's work: nearly 90 of the employees. It must develop new trades for tomorrow, in the distribution or on the service to the person.

V. l. talk in. Today, it is partial, very insufficient time.

With the aging of the population, the individual services are a significant deposit of jobs. I support their total tax exemption of income tax, because I do not understand for what family, when it is employer, would be fiscally less well treated than capital-intensive business.

V. L. In the meantime, we are told: there is no work.

He is not working because everything is did in France to discourage: 35 hours, taxation. What I want, it is a society where one considers finally that work creates the work, the job creates employment, that the purchasing power creates growth.

V. L. You really think that self-employed women have more than 30 years of business and who began working at the age of fourteen have want to stay up to seventy years

I understand that they did not want to continue, and I am so that they have freedom of choice of their retirement age. But should we really continue to retire at some 52 years bus drivers We are the countries where young people enter the later on the labour market, where the share of the middle-aged work is low, and where there are more unemployed. Etonnez after the France save 1 of growth less than others. There is no coincidence: it's the job that creates the work. In your area, as in many others, you have results of a Malthusian policy which was to share the work instead of creating more.

CLAUDE-EMMANUEL TRIUMPH.In restructuring, is, for thirty years, in the each for itself, with the key, extremely unequal solutions. Is it not time to change the situation

I do not think that, when a factory closes, the relevant answer is to treat everyone the same way. Each has its own path, its own potential. The best guarantee for the employee, it is the individual education savings account. But you are right, on the territories, must be that it anticipates further restructuring.

V. EI T. Why not hang at the poles of competitiveness a social component that would work on the fate of the people

Let us be clear: the right of the protective labour. However never employees not felt as precarious. The France does not have additional rigidities. It is already very difficult to implement competitiveness clusters, to work all of the researchers, contractors. If, in addition, it adds specific social rules, it will not be anything. It must first ensure create wealth. The real problem with the France, it is that it creates enough new jobs. The misfortune is that, when we talk about flexibility, one has the impression to be the new the people want. But the opposite is true! If I want to foster job creation in our country, it is precisely that the wage increase. And our labour law, which applies when there are more companies You can build genuine flexi-security and find a win-win system. An example: companies seek less uncertainty about the duration of procedures for the dismissal. Can be

the guarantee, but in Exchange, he must strengthen their bonds of reclassification. If, today, there are both acting, is for fear of creating a Commission, as the company said that, if it encounters a difficulty, it will not escape. Stiffness organizes the precariousness of the employee. This is why I advocate the unique employment contract.

V. EI T. Put you in this contract

I want to include all acting and fixed-term contracts that exist only because the Commission is afraid. This will be a contract whose social rights will increase in proportion to the time spent. And that is not exclusive: it will not prevent the maintenance of a certain type of acting or mission contracts.

V. EI T. To improve governance, why not advance on the path of the co-development In European countries where this exists, it expects better things.

He would first unions to reform. Their representation rules are obsolete. They are too weak and not quite representative. In our social dialogue, there is not today for real discussion, it is a permanent role. This is why I propose, for example, freedom of presentation of the candidates in the first round of the professional elections. There is further progress in corporate governance: transparency, the sanction of the errors, liability... I am very open. I do not think that the shareholder should decide only in the enterprise: the wealth of a society, it is its capital, but also the work of employees. I support that is associated with the men and women to the maximum; I also proposed that it opens stock options to all, and I am prepared to go further. But on one condition: that we rigidifie not the functioning of the business by new rules.

V. EI T. Globalisation, Europe suffers from a lack of social and tax harmonisation. The France, a founding country, does not really was the means to advance his point of view. What is your strategy to make this change

In Europe, there is a deadlock and only one: the rule of unanimity. Seen on immigration as on fiscal and social harmonization. When there is not agreement to twenty-five, cannot move forward, and as there is agreement on anything, it does not advance. It's like this that leads to aberrations. The Estonia can put the rate of tax on the reinvested to zero, and we, we need unanimity to change the rate of VAT on products that are even harder to outsource overseas. Who can understand this Indeed, I do not accept that some European countries may feel sufficiently rich to put their tax rates to zero and sufficiently poor to obtain our subsidies and thus to fund relocations. This is called fiscal and social dumping.

DANIEL COHEN.How do you able to reconcile the French with Europe

I am defending the market economy, freedom, but Europe has been built to protect, not to be Trojan of unfair competition. I demand reciprocity. "I open, you open;" you did not works, I did not open. "It is basic, but it does not discuss. Take the case of Bombardier. I have nothing against the fact that SNCF has chosen the Canadian company to renew certain equipment. But I do not accept that Alstom cannot compete in Montreal or Toronto because they are over the counter markets. There is no inevitable to globalization. There must be reciprocity. I also want to re-introduce Community preference. I repeat, this is not abnormal that a continent protects itself, as do the Americans, the Japanese or the Chinese. With regard to negotiation in the WTO, which is one of the most important skills of the European Union, I think that it is possible to entrust to a European Commissioner, regardless of its quality. I wish it to be driven by the President of the European Union, elected for two and a half years by the European Council of Heads of State, to really weigh in discussions. Need to politicize this negotiation in the sense of the term. Must be finally reform the WTO, because I do not accept that it takes no account of environmental and social rules.

D. C. The current debate concerning the poorest countries is in contrast to exempt them from the obligations of the WTO so that they are able to participate in international trade.

Of course, I am not question the fact that the poorest countries of the world are exempt of the rules of the WTO. Moreover, Europe has always been much for them. But those problem, the major emerging countries: China, the India and the Brazil. Cannot have these giants that emerge which is a good new and say that they are exempt from all the social and environmental rules that we apply.

D. C. But to accept, emerging countries will ask a reciprocity and concessions on our part in the agricultural field.

European agriculture is, in my view, also strategic space, communication, or the health industry. We will win 2 to 3 billion people on the planet, much will need to feed them, and we require our agriculture. It also would not be in the interest of the European consumer to weaken our agriculture, because if our agriculture disappeared, who may believe that the prices of agricultural products do not immediately bolster in Europe Therefore, I will not drop cap. Cannot assign. China, the India or the Brazil have progress to make before we do on the CAP, even if it will certainly take the reform one day. Benefiting today largely of world trade You want that I go into the details of the contracts for nuclear power plants or the Airbus sale to the Chinese and they will make there You believe that I have not seen this

D. C. You want halt to sell our technology

Absolutely not. I want halt to be naive. They are extremely pragmatic, intelligent people and who know, I am sure, understand speech of a certain firmness.

D. C. As you say in the United States if they continue to not implement the Kyoto Protocol

I say "tax of Cambridge". In other words, ecological tax. The system of free competition is distorted if the industries, in some countries, must limit CO2 emissions and others not. Told me close to the Americans, and I say that the United States is a great democracy and Americans are friends. The friendship and cooperation between Europe and the United States is a question absolutely major and structural. I do not regard me as the enemy of those with whom we have fought against two more murderous totalitarian regimes of the 20th century, communism and Nazism. But the freedom of trade is fair trade. The position of the Australia and the United States, which refuse to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, which is already insufficient, is inadmissible. In a competition, you can't have a competitor that runs with a ball at the foot and the other who is not, if so much is that respect the environment is a ball.

D. c. should it a European seat in the IMF

From the moment where there is a currency for the euro area, Yes. This does not mean that I support a European headquarters to the Security Council.

D. c. should it reflect rules of governance European which are not those of the United States

It is vital. Must be a statute of the European company, a European way of doing. Globalization is not the triumph of a single system, a single culture. On the contrary, it is the chance for all cultures to be heard. I am not in favour of uniformity. At the same time I appreciate certain aspects of American capitalism, such as its ability to punish abuses. What is happened with Enron, where officials have been punished, seems notable.

D. c. is there place for a European industrial strategy conducive to the emergence of large groups You have been criticized on Alstom.

I would have been pleased that an agreement between Alstom and Siemens. But the CEO of Siemens simply me propose a joint venture between his company and profitable of Alstom operations, while the French State kept him all loss-making activities. It therefore had nothing to do with the constitution of a large European Group. Should not do so, and the facts have given me reason. Alstom was saved, and the State, who had taken an interest in this goal, finally able the resale much more expensive to the Bouygues group. Europe must, in industrial matters, to be much more offensive than it is. I respect the competition, but competition as an ideology, it is bad, because this prevents the formation of European champions. We have suffered the consequences in the project of reconciliation between Schneider and Legrand. On this point, I think that the European Commission should revise its doctrine and do more than place a genuine European industrial strategy.