Between figures in the red and copious tears, the general assembly of the Nice Chamber of Commerce and Industry confirmed the catatonic state of the Azur economy: Things are no longer going well, and the future looks even more problematic.
How to get out of it? By listening to the numerous interventions by various business leaders, one gets the conviction that, more than a new economic policy, a collective therapy is needed: Business is doing poorly, but the blame is always on others.
A minimum of self-criticism would be desirable because everyone has something they could have done to improve things and obviously did not do, or did not even think of doing!
The trends for the second half of the year all have a negative sign before the regression figures, across all economic sectors.
Let’s listen to the lament of the mourners…
Retailers: 53% of stores recorded a decrease in turnover during the sales period.
Real estate: -31% in new listings, -22% in homes sold, -17% in building permits. This shows that even the near future already has a heavy mortgage.
Tourism: The traditional pillar with -10% in hospitality, -25% for dining in July, no significant improvement in August, and weak hopes for September.
Traffic with Corsica is not spared, it too regressed by 10%, and cruises are not doing well either.
And finally, we also discover that we eat less bread (not to mention pastries and bakery treats).
What to do in front of this Stations of the Cross?
Bernard Kleynhoff presented 7 proposals “to revive the local economy”: restoring confidence by moving from “pacts to actions”; achieving a genuine simplification shock (fewer texts, norms, and regulations compared to the current 400,000); strengthening the competitiveness of businesses by creating, in addition to the competitiveness, business and rebound packs, FIRE, the intervention force for corporate rebound; reviving construction (public land) and real estate (modification of the ALUR law); continuing the public financing of investment operations like the Regional Apprenticeship Campus; for transportation, improving the international service of Nice Airport and accelerating the Nice railway junction project; finally, succeeding in the labeling of French Tech Côte d’Azur, which would give greater visibility to the territory’s innovation activity by bringing together different activity hubs under the same logo.
As one can easily see, it is a potpourri of measures and recommendations, certainly interesting but not conclusive.
For transportation, one of the key factors for the attractiveness of an area, no result regarding the opening up of Nice and the department can be expected before 2030… and still, we are far from resolving the problem, while the airport, number 2 in France with 11.5 million passengers, is constrained in its development within the framework of a national aviation policy focused on “all-Paris”.
So, while waiting for a brightening of the economic situation, are tears the best antidote to distress?
Given the prevailing gloom of this assembly, Bernard Kleynhoff could have invited his affiliates to see a performance next Friday at the Théâtre de Verdure where Philippe Auguin will conduct Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem in an unprecedented open-air representation: the final “miserere” of the choir is, both, consoling and exhilarating.
