Nicolas Dufourcq: “We need to change the way people think about industry”.

Nicolas Dufourcq is resolutely optimistic about the challenges facing the French economy and the sometimes declining outlook. “SMEs are holding up well, claims have not risen in recent months, and entrepreneurs are proving highly resilient despite the difficulties”, insisted the CEO of Bpifrance on Sunday evening on “Esprit d’entreprise”, the business program on the Figaro TV Île-de-France channel, although he conceded that “some sectors are suffering a little more than others, such as construction, textile distribution and retail”.

The man who, since its creation ten years ago, has headed the public investment bank, whose mission is to support companies from their creation through to the financing of their projects, in cooperation with the State and the regions, is well placed to assess the behavior of the small and medium-sized businesses he works with on a daily basis. “We’re currently observing a very interesting phenomenon, where our French SMEs are increasingly buying up German SMEs, to become ETIs! In Germany, where the population is aging, there are a lot of companies for sale”, says Nicolas Dufourcq. says Nicolas Dufourcq.

A fervent defender of industry, Dufourcq outlines the conditions he believes need to be met if France is to become a champion in this field once again. “We need large cathedrals, i.e. very large semiconductor, battery and electrolyser factories, which cannot be built without subsidies from the State and l’Union européenne… Then, we need industrial start-ups, with entrepreneurs from the world of research who can put their knowledge to work in the economy. And in between, there’s the whole ecosystem of industrial SMEs and ETIs that reinvent themselves through innovation”, he describes.

“A big problem with the question of work”.

Beyond financing, the crux of the matter is employment, at a time when many business leaders are facing a real labor shortage. Nicolas Dufourcq calls for a general mobilization to meet this challenge. “To attract young talent, the media, government and families need to work together to change young people’s opinion of industry. On TV, for example, it would be interesting to see the emergence of a show to create the most beautiful factory in France, like we see today with the show ‘Top Chef’!” The head of Bpifrance also calls for people to roll up their sleeves. “In France, we have a major problem with the issue of work. We have to keep hammering away at the fact that we work less than others, less than all Europeans, and that this is untenable,” he asserts.

At a time when the cards of globalization are being redrawn, and some countries are rediscovering the virtues of protectionism, “Europe has stopped being naïve, and the mindset in Brussels has changed”, says Nicolas Dufourcq, citing as an example the European Commission, which “has taken up the issue of electric cars in the face of unfair competition from the Chinese, and will submit its conclusions in June 2024”.

Finally, Nicolas Dufourcq rejects the idea that the French Tech ecosystem has reached a plateau in recent months, with companies suffering from a number of disruptions (falling valuations, difficulties refinancing or accessing the stock market, etc.). “In the end, it was the American funds that pounced on our start-ups in 2021-2022 to finance them, who paid for the overvaluation bubble! analyzes the executive. In 2023, there was still a lot of fund-raising, particularly in deeptech.