Reinold Geiger is managing director of the L'Occitanie group.
The euro collapses and falls almost to parity with the dollar and the Swiss franc.
The ruble is at its highest despite the sanctions implemented since the invasion of Ukraine.
This is probably not the desired effect!
The entrepreneur that I am can only be worried, especially since inflation is on the rise and recession is looming.
By deciding to attack Ukraine, President Putin has brought the war to the doorstep of Europe.
This aggression is unacceptable and must be strongly condemned.
Should we therefore condemn the Russian people who have nothing to do with President Putin's autocratic decision?
Should we therefore blindly apply all-out sanctions that do not necessarily hit the Russian war effort?
Although Western countries are not at war, the fact remains that relations with Putin's Russia are today greatly upset.
Even if the Europe of Twenty-Seven is finally giving itself some means to develop a unified defence, this is still in its infancy.
The United States remains essential with its powerful nuclear arsenal because French and British nuclear forces alone cannot maintain effective deterrence against Russia.
This situation is not without effect on the sanctions decided by the G7, NATO and the European Union, the consequences of which have boomerang effects first on the European economies.
For his part, President Putin, who has forged special ties with his Chinese counterpart XI Jinping, does not seem to be alarmed by the sanctions on Russian gas and oil.
These are now exported more abundantly to China but also to India while the restrictions penalize European countries.
This is not the first time that sanctions initiated by the United States have directly impacted European companies, as was the case during the withdrawal from the Vienna Agreement on Iran's nuclear power.
History is repeating itself today in Russia in a more pernicious way.
Nothing is simple in this conflict, but how not to be frustrated when, overnight, years of work are called into question by iniquitous decisions?
Reinold Geiger.
The prestigious Yale University, setting itself up as a censor of the industrial world, has drawn up a list of companies operating in Russia, giving good and bad points depending on whether or not these companies have stopped their presence in the country.
This list of names of companies that still had activities in Russia was thus thrown into the social networks which then went wild.
At that time, in less than an hour, L'Occitane had to face several hundred attacks and just as many boycott threats to make it leave Russia.
What unfortunately it had to do because the vindictiveness of Internet users became unbearable and risked jeopardizing its activities in other regions of the world.
For more than a quarter of a century of hard work we had developed a successful business in Russia.
It is with great sadness that I think of our 720 employees whom we had to abandon when we left the country.
However, our presence, like that of many SMEs, did not contribute in any way to Putin's war effort and could not be called collaborationist.
Nothing is simple in this conflict, but how not to be frustrated when, overnight, years of work are called into question by iniquitous decisions?
We must not hide our face, it is also the frustration that dominates when we see Europe withdrawing from Russia and giving pride of place to Russian and Asian companies.
The business leader faced with a fait accompli has no choice but to rely on the politicians who
ultimately
decide the destiny of the peoples who elected them.
We cannot blame the United States when they protect their interests, but we must worry when Europe lags behind because there are no longer any visionaries to defend and assume its destiny like in their Churchill era. , Adenauer, deGaulle.
A glimmer however in this conflict, the agreement on cereals signed Friday, July 22 by Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and the UN.
Admittedly, the agreement is very fragile, but we must hang on to it so that there is hope of ending this war.
When the peace will be signed and the sanctions lifted, it will be necessary to arm ourselves with patience to recover the lost market shares.
The frustration will then have been only ephemeral because the entrepreneurial fiber never goes out.
