“We are constantly asked for the same documents,” denounce business leaders ulcerated by “paperwork”

A bill to simplify economic life must be presented to the Council of Ministers to “simplify the lives of the French” and in particular that of bosses. Business leaders regularly denounce the administrative burden with which they are regularly confronted.

Faced with the avalanche of standards weighing on businesses, a simplification bill must be presented this Wednesday, April 24 to the Council of Ministers, before its arrival in the Senate scheduled for June 3. Several of the measures it plans have already been revealed, such as the gradual elimination of Cerfa administrative forms or the monthly payment of rents for traders. The stated objective is to “reduce hours” of procedures often considered unnecessary, mainly by VSEs and SMEs.

And this is what emerges from talking to small business leaders: they no longer struggle with paperwork. Fabien Rossignol runs a metal framework company in Saône-et-Loire. At the head of a team of 27 employees, he has been seeing standards and lost time piling up for more than seven years.

“We are constantly asked for the same documents”, he gets annoyed. Particularly when it comes to responding to a call for tenders. “Declaration on honor, Cerfa, etc… We are systematically asked for these elements when applying, not even when we are awarded the contract. After a while, it’s almost no longer worth it.”

“Sometimes we spend more time doing paperwork than on the file”

Fabien Rossignol, business manager

at franceinfo

Facilitate reporting

A word also comes up on everyone’s lips: “reporting”. It is all this data from a company that is sorted and compiled to be presented to future customers in particular. Tedious work, especially if you’re looking to “green” your activity, like Catherine Guerniou. This woman runs a custom window workshop in the Paris region. “You can very well say orally to yourself ‘it’s good my electricity bill is going down I consume less’ but what is important is rather to see through curves how this varies from month to monthremarks the boss, but all of this requires a lot of energy compared to what I can get from it in terms of profit from the sale of a carpentry shop.”she denounces.

These business leaders therefore welcome this bill supposed to make their lives easier, but remain cautious. One of them hopes it will go beyond a “umpteenth simplification commission” which would only make things even more complicated.