Have bad economic figures decided to conspire against Nicolas Sarkozy? That of French foreign trade should not bring comfort to the President of the State. In 2007, France experienced a “historic” deficit in its trade balance, which is expected to be around 40 billion Euros. It is all the more incomprehensible given this national “underperformance” that German exports recorded a positive balance of 19.3 billion Euros, an amount unprecedented in seventeen years, notes the Federal Statistical Office in Germany. The reasons cited by the Secretary of State for Enterprises and Foreign Trade – the cost of the energy bill due to the increase in oil prices – are hardly convincing: the Germans also heat their homes and use cars! The Economic Analysis Council, placed next to the Prime Minister and charged with enlightening, through the confrontation of points of view among specialists, the government’s economic choices, observes moreover “excluding energy, a 2.5 fold increase from 2000 to 2005 in the German trade surplus, a doubling over the same period for the Italian trade surplus, and a stability at a low level of the French trade surplus.” A quite euphemistic term for a deficit which already reached 22.9 billion Euros in 2005 and 28.2 billion the following year!
Various official attempts to attribute to economic indicators alone the responsibility for this situation also do not hold up to analysis. An information report from the National Assembly in February 2007 on the “public support for export” system details the arguments: neither “the evolution of wage costs, similar for ten years in Germany and France, nor the differences in sectoral structures between the German and French industries” – a more general industrial fabric in France, more specialized in Germany, which is supposed to better respond to the laws of supply and demand – manage to explain the reversed results between the two countries. At most, it is observed that the “shares of the French market” are rather modest in geographical areas more favorable than others for growth: “the three areas Europe – largely in deficit for the hexagon -, Near and Middle East and Africa absorb three-quarters of our exports while they represent less than 45% of global trade.” The “high growth” areas such as Asia and the entire American continent, however, account for barely 20% of our foreign trade.
More to blame, the size of small and medium enterprises, modest in France, larger in Germany. Indeed, there are twice as few SMEs with more than 10 employees in France than in Germany. A statistic that reinforces geographical specialization and the difficulty of selling in a more distant market. A situation likely to be elucidated by the results of a survey carried out by the “Global Competitiveness Index” and published this year as part of the Davos Forum: they pinpoint “poor relations between employers and employees” as well as “the rigidity of the labor market” in France. So many reasons that do not encourage the development of an entrepreneurial spirit, which should begin at school as demanded in a controversial report by former Prime Minister Michel Rocard.
Therefore, it appears that it is indeed the “habits of French commerce” that need to be changed. As well as its mindsets. It’s not just the “big contracts” that can make the trade balance positive. Promoting SMEs, which unlike large corporations, do not have the same possibilities for exploration and negotiation for export, would be a step forward. After all, the presidential Airbus could just as well transport small industry captains, less media-friendly but just as effective. They could also benefit from more political support – and not just technical through our PPE – in our representations abroad. The condescendence they sometimes face in administrations does not always encourage them to respond to tender offers. A “breakthrough” could also happen here.
