By succeeding Gérard Mestrallet in 2018 as chairman of the energy giant Engie (ex-GDF-Suez), Jean-Pierre Clamadieu, who worked in chemistry at Rhône-Poulenc, Rhodia or Solvay, bet on the renewable. A third of the 100 billion euros of the recovery plan presented next week will be devoted to it. The one who is also a director of Airbus deciphers the stakes.
What does our country need to restart the machine?
JEAN-PIERRE CLAMADIEU. The crisis is, by its magnitude, unprecedented. It was first necessary to respond to the emergency to support the sectors most affected, such as the automobile or aeronautics, and avoid business bankruptcies and cascading job cuts. Hence the measures of partial unemployment or loans guaranteed by the State. Today it is a question of restoring confidence, a fundamental issue of the recovery. But also a difficult exercise when, at the same time, the health situation makes it necessary to make the mask in a company compulsory ... It is nevertheless necessary to recreate a dynamic, to make everyone want to roll up their sleeves to effectively restart the machine, in line with the plan of the government.
Exactly, how to restore confidence when the specter of bankruptcies and mass unemployment hovers or that in the United Kingdom for example, British Airways plans to lay off some of its employees to re-hire them at lower wages?
Without being angelic, trust can only be established through dialogue, at all levels, from politics to business. Be clear and transparent about the challenges to be met, the economic issues, the social impacts and the measures to be adopted to limit their impact. This may sometimes be worth going through workforce adjustments to adapt to a plummeting demand. If I take the example of Airbus, of which I am a director, the boss Guillaume Faury gives a speech of truth to his employees, explaining how to react to be at the rendezvous of a recovery that will come at some point or time. other.
Do you think the recovery plan is up to the stakes?
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I was probably one of the first leaders to say, as early as April, that the ecological transition absolutely had to be taken into account by the public authorities in the recovery plan, in order to allow us to prepare for the next crisis, which will most likely be climatic. For Engie, as for other companies, this creates many development opportunities. On the level itself, 100 billion euros is very ambitious and it sends a strong message. Even if the challenge now is not so much to ask whether the size of the envelope is sufficient, as to implement its content as quickly as possible with companies and all the economic players in the country, the large groups , but above all the entire fabric of SMEs. During the crisis, we ourselves made 100 million euros available to support our suppliers, by speeding up payment terms. We have to act very quickly, because time is a key factor, so simple mechanisms are needed. Everything will be played out in the coming months.
