IN FRANCE ONE LEARNS TO SAY ‘NO’ BEFORE SAYING ‘YES’. COULD THIS HAVE A NEGATIVE IMPACT ON THE FRENCH ECONOMY?

In France like pretty much everywhere in the world it is back to school or in French ‘La Rentrée’ at this moment.

For François Hollande, the new President of France and Jean-Marc Ayrault, the new Prime minister of France ‘la rentrée’ is rather paved of negative news.

First the announcement that employment reached 3 million people on the 31st July, worst results since 1999. And this figure is not going to get better in August 31st. In France everything shuts down in August.

Second, a real lack of confidence and motivation for people to become entrepreneurs in France. In a recent article from the Washington Post, the author explains that it is difficult to create start-up companies where the culture is about ‘no’ and ‘impossible’, risk aversion and lack of innovativeness. One may find many French innovators outside of France right now but they may have left for a reason.

Third, less than 24 hours ago all the economic newspapers have announced that France is not ranked any more in the top 20 most competitive countries in the world according to the Davos World Economic Forum. France is ranked 21st, lost 3 positions in 12 months.

Motivation to excel and the possibility to fail and the likelihood of coming out quickly out of a failure/brankruptcy may stop people to try. The Economist at the end of August had a special review on how easy it is to come out of bankruptcy and start over across different countries. America took about 12 months versus France 6 years.

Richard Branson Entrepreneur

At a time where the cognac economy is doing well one may wonder how cognac would be doing if it was made somewhere else than France! Could it be better in Canada, Germany, Australia, Switzerland … I guess there are pros & cons in every country. 

For cognac it does not matter: in fact the owner of Hennessy, Bernard Arnault, is the richest individual in France according to the last ranking from www.challenges.fr  I wonder if they say ‘yes’ more often at Hennessy than any other places …

Source: Washington Post