President Emmanuel Macron will try to convince company chiefs including Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk and LVMH founder Bernard Arnault that France’s political disarray won’t lead to a more hostile corporate environment — even as business confidence slumped.
During the Thursday lunch meeting with corporate sponsors of the Olympics, Macron will say that the election earlier this month that left the country without a government won’t jeopardize efforts he’s made since entering office to make the French economy more business friendly, according to Elysee officials.
Since he was first elected in 2017, Macron’s policies — such as loosening labor laws and boosting the retirement age — have largely reassured investors and businesses. In that time, France has risen to the top of European rankings for attracting foreign investment and its unemployment rate remains well below the average over the past few decades.
Macron dissolved the legislature and called a snap national election last month after his party performed poorly in a European Parliament vote. The result left France’s most important legislative body fragmented and with no group holding enough seats to govern on its own.
Macron was planning to tell the business leaders on Thursday that the ball is now in the court of political parties to form a government and that the president will work toward a coalition that is business friendly, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The lunch was scheduled before the elections were called and is mostly aimed at thanking the CEOs for sponsoring the Olympics, they said. Attendees also include Coca-Cola’s James Quincey, Carrefour CEO Alexandre Bompard, Alibaba co-founder Joe Tsai, and Aditya and Lakshmi Mittal from ArcelorMittal.
A survey Friday showed French business confidence slumped to levels not seen since the Covid pandemic as companies reckoned with the turbulence of the snap election. An earlier survey by the Bank of France that was completed before the final round of voting had already showed a marked increase in uncertainty as firms reported concerns about investment and a possible increase in labor costs.
Macron refused to consider a candidate for prime minister proposed this week by an alliance of the left, which won the most seats in the election, saying that the political parties needed to work together in some way to broaden their numbers in parliament. He said he will keep the current caretaker government in place at least through the Olympics.