The invitation was only issued last Friday but they made themselves available. Wednesday noon, seven CEOs of the CAC 40 were received at Emmanuel Macron's table at the Élysée. The President of the Republic, deconfinement obliges, returns to this type of lunches, complementary to his Tour de France. Before attending the Vivatech show in the afternoon, Emmanuel Macron spoke with Jean-Laurent Bonnafé (BNP Paribas), Laurent Burelle (Plastic Omnium, and president of Afep, the association of large private companies), Bernard Charlès (Dassault Systèmes), Xavier Huillard (Vinci), Florent Menegaux (Michelin), Benoît Potier (Air Liquide) and Patrick Pouyanné (TotalEnergies).
Each in their hallway, the bosses briefly talked about rates, tech, energy, infrastructure, global tax, etc. The general discussion brought out some salient points. One, the economic recovery is strong. Two, the reform of the State - the president recalled his action and in particular the reform of the large corps - is a priority. Three, called upon to maintain a sustained rate of hiring of young people, the bosses of the CAC 40 stressed the urgency of raising the bar in education and training. According to a government source, today it would be the big bosses who fear the most that the executive will relaunch pension reform. Emmanuel Macron was able to observe from this sample of seven specimens that the leaders were indeed worried about a flammable social climate - and not only in France.But the president said nothing of his intentions.
