According to France Industrie, industry only represents 13.4% of the wealth produced in France, compared to 23% at the start of the 1980s. At the same time, industry represents 17% of GDP in Italy, until 22% in Germany.
The Covid revealed that France was extremely dependent on the rest of the world and therefore vulnerable. No masks, no vaccines, no semiconductors, producer prices that are soaring today, manufacturing lines that stop due to shortages.
And then our dependence on the rest of the world is costing us extremely dearly, with a trade deficit which should reach a record in 2021, around 90 billion euros.
Between the recovery plan and France 2030, some 70 billion euros in public aid are planned by the government to promote industrial relocation projects, or even to try to create sectors with high added value from scratch.
This is how France, with the European Union, identifies projects and finances them: whether in electric battery factories, in hydrogen or biotech. And then to attract foreign investors, the executive plays in parallel on taxation, with a reduction in production taxes and corporate tax.
there is an awareness that a country without factories is impoverished. We have come back from the model in vogue a few years ago, of a service company. In particular because wages are lower there than in industry.
Afterwards, we must focus on training when entire generations have been kept away from manual trades. Hoping that all that energy and money spent will truly create wealth. Because in the meantime, the old industry reminds us that one technology drives out another, that employees and production sites have a hard time retraining.
Thus this week again, in the automotive sector, the Fonderies du Poitou did not find a buyer and the SAM workers traveled by bus from Aveyron to the Ministry of the Economy in Paris, to denounce the closure of their factory.