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By Anthony Streicher, President of the GSC Association
Tribune. The French economy is making its most seasoned statisticians goat. The fundraising figures are incomprehensible, the indicators of new business creation and failures are staggering. I would like to warn the ecosystem representing businesses and entrepreneurs as a whole that black swans are looming at the dawn of a year 2021 unprecedented from all points of view.
2020 – Crazy about starting a business. In 2020, INSEE reports the creation of nearly 850,000 companies. An incredible record and even incomprehensible in a way when we look back on this year of confinement of France from work. At the lowest hours in terms of the desire to undertake, before the transition to the year 2000, fewer than 170,000 suicide bombers tried their luck. The majority of the creations are individual structures, in majority of the “autoentrepreneurs” (henceforth referred to as micro-entrepreneurs).
The act of entrepreneurship when it is ostentatious must not hide the risk of seeing certain social categories called “middle of the roped” become precarious. The government protects certain companies and freezes the pathologies that can emerge from an excess of their financial commitments. However, as far as the self-employed are concerned, it is another treatment that is much more stingy with effective treatments.
2020 – Mad about failures. The Altares group – historical expert and referent in business information – unveils its figures for business failures in France for the whole of 2020. Down nearly 40% compared to 2019, the number of failures is at its lowest for 30 years. Thierry Millon, director of Altares studies, recalls that 2020 will go down in history as one of the most serious health and economic crises the world has known, causing our country’s GDP to plunge by 9% in a few months.
And yet, “only” 32,184 companies (-38.1%) requested and obtained support from the commercial or judicial court this year. Figures from another time since we have to go back to 1987 to find such levels. Like the sea receding to its lowest before a tsunami surges, I fear the deadly wave in 2021. The challenge for 2021 will be to gradually wake up the economy so as to allow viable businesses to develop and the courts to propose for companies weakened or even struck down by the Covid, the best exit or rebound solution.
2020 – Crazy about fundraising. Despite the collective hallucination of markets of which nothing says if 2021 will herald a rebirth of the economy, the pragmatics of the order book is not reassured.
In 2020 the AMF tells us that 400,000 French people have taken their first steps on the stock market, individual investors active on the Paris Stock Exchange have grown to nearly 800,000 people. French Tech, for its part, is “Jean qui rit” in the face of “Jean qui pleure” rather confined to the Pole emploi agencies. Despite the crisis, more than 620 start-ups raised 5.4 billion euros; up 7% over one year despite the 16% drop in the number of operations according to the EY barometer published on January 12.
The fundamentals of the economy are stirred by an electromagnetic magnet that bears the letters COVID, and the inconsistent numbers ahead of us call on every entrepreneur to be extra careful. As a business creator, it is more reasonable today than yesterday to protect yourself against a storm that can arise at any time! And there are ways to protect his family, his income when things fall apart. Accountants, lawyers, bankers, consular networks must also hammer home this message to all those who get started. Because, at what “whatever the cost” proudly punctuated by policies, it will always be necessary to create entrepreneurs of wealth and jobs, and contributory employees in order to feed the machine of social protection “à la française” that no one is ready to sacrifice.
Anthony Streicher
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