In his store Trois par 3 in Limoges, hundreds of pairs of shoes are gathering dust. As the months go by, as non-essential stores keep the curtain down, Fournier's inventory keeps growing. Simon, 32, "the fifth generation" at the head of this family company founded in 1880, had to rent an additional warehouse of around 2000 m² to stock up all his merchandise, the summer collection which "hits the nail on the head". The fifteen other Trois par 3 stores, scattered throughout the west of France, from Le Havre to Toulouse, are also sleeping, their shelves full.
But this once successful company, which employs 70 people, is on the brink.
Because the solidarity fund, intended for businesses closed during the health crisis, only takes into account the Siren number.
However, for its fifteen other stores, the Fournier family has created Siret numbers.
It thus receives 10,000 euros of State subsidy per month, only for its head office in Limoges, while it spends 100,000 euros monthly in rent alone for its 16 shops.
According to Simon, his family should therefore have received 10,000 euros per store, or 160,000 euros per month.
“For the months of October then November, we received 10,666 euros instead of 170,656 euros!
He chokes.
According to his calculations, the lack of subsidies amounts to around 509,000 euros since the start of the pandemic.
“Our secondary schools have Siret numbers.
We couldn't do otherwise: if I created 16 companies, that would mean 16 balance sheets.
This also makes it possible to facilitate the exchange of stock between the parent company and the other stores, otherwise I would have to officially sell my merchandise to my own stores, and that they themselves resell their unsold products to the head office.
With this system, the group also compensates for the losses of a store that is not doing well, ”lists Simon Fournier.
A solidarity fund "not suitable for medium-sized enterprises"
Siren, Siret, what's the difference?
The Siren number is used to identify the company as an entity.
The Siret identifies each establishment of the company.
On the website of the Ministry of the Economy, we read that there is only one Siren number per company, but that the latter can be assigned several distinct Siret numbers if it has other establishments in addition to its head office.
“We have made a simple structure, like thousands of independent traders,” assures Simon Fournier.
If the solidarity fund is suitable for restaurateurs, it is not suitable for medium-sized businesses like mine.
And we are not united, so we find it difficult to make ourselves heard ”.
The manager wrote to the president of the region, to the prefect, to the President of the Republic, to the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire… The answers, when he receives any, are always the same: what he perceives is in accordance with the rule. “We feel totally unfair, discriminated against even in the face of the law,” he protests. I can have a competitor who has exactly the same number of shops as me, the same expenses, the same turnover, but he will earn 160,000 euros per month because he has different Sirens, which is ubiquitous. We are dying, while we are a profitable company
(seven million euros in annual turnover before the crisis, editor's note)
, which pays all its taxes in France. "
Two of its stores, those that were already coughing before the coronavirus crisis, are closing.
Six people made redundant.
Debts are exploding: at 32, Simon has a slate of two million euros to repay over five years.
At the beginning of March, the closure of shopping centers of more than 10,000 m² brought with it that of the five “best stores” of the Fournier company.
There remains the website, on which the family liquidates everything.
"It helps us, but it does not compensate at all for the 16 stores."
"We cannot stick to all situations"
The solidarity fund was designed for small businesses. This is both "one of its strengths and its weaknesses", considers Grégoire Leclercq, president of the Federation of autoentrepreneurs. “We are fairly generous with our companies, innovative in our system, but once it takes its place in the technocracy, it becomes more complex from month to month, it is the great French story. The Siren instead of the Siret is a technocratic trap. Today, the decree is completely illegible… although I am an expert. "
When contacted, the Ministry of Public Finance considers that the structure of the Fournier company is not "the right format to have". "If he had created 16 shops, he would have had 16 helpers," one explains. The solidarity fund depends on how you have structured your company. Of course, it's an organization, it costs you an accountant per store. It makes sense from his point of view, but not fiscally. Aid is already very generous, the solidarity fund is 24.4 million euros paid to more than two million companies, no one is harmed or despised. "Public Finances recognize it:" We cannot stick to all situations. "And, according to her, the choice of the Fournier family is" in the minority "and this unusual case.
This is also the opinion of tax lawyer Franck Gozlan: “When you develop a group, you have several possibilities: you house everything in a single structure, which is quite rare, or you create a company at each point of sale. sale.
In the latter case, if one of the stores is in liquidation, it does not impact the parent company.
Most of the time, we have a holding company and we create a company per point of sale.
For ease, he preferred to drown everything in the same company and not bother with billings all over the place.
He could not have known that the Covid would go through this ... "
Other companies in the same case
However, the Fournier company is not the only one in this case.
In the South-West, the Maillochon company (specializing in blue jeans) has also chosen to develop its business under a single legal entity, therefore under a single Siren number.
With 20 establishments and 80 employees, it denounces, in a letter addressed to the prefect, "a lack of discriminatory compensation" and a "distortion of competition, in particular with franchise chains".
In Tours, the company Pierorgan (clothing retailer) only receives aid for four stores.
The manager mentions to the prefect "dramatic consequences on the sustainability" of her business.
Contacted, the Haute-Vienne prefecture has not yet responded to our requests.
The Haute-Vienne CCI "imagines that they are not the only ones in France", without giving a precise figure.
Members of the CPME (confederation of small and medium-sized enterprises) have indeed referred their difficulties to the confederation.
The latter "monitors this problem", but "has not taken the time to position itself on it".
For the month of March, Simon Fournier and his father should receive more than 91,000 euros, thanks to the new regime for shopping centers.
"Which would seem more consistent with regard to the turnover of his company", comments the Ministry of Finance.
Still far from the 160,000 euros hoped for.
On May 17, the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region will put to a vote the release of a subsidy for the Fournier company.
A horizon that Simon watches carefully.
