Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Stephanomics, the podcast that brings the
Speaker 1: global economy to you. O Macron is super contagious. Any
Speaker 1: primary school teacher can tell you that. But it's not
Speaker 1: as lethal as previous rounds of this virus, so surely
Speaker 1: it's going to be a lot less damaging to the recovery.
Speaker 1: Only you don't need to be in lockdown for a
Speaker 1: significant chunk of the economy to grind to a halt.
Speaker 1: You just need one in four workers to call in sick.
Speaker 1: Today's show we Haven't on the ground report from Bloomberg
Speaker 1: senior correspondent Shawn Donnan on the tidal wave of sick
Speaker 1: days that's hitting the supply of mozzarella sticks, airline pilots,
Speaker 1: and yoga pats. We also take some time to consider
Speaker 1: President Emmanuel Makhorn, labeled the anti Trump when he swept
Speaker 1: to power in France nearly five years ago. Now looking
Speaker 1: a bit battle weary as he fights for reelection, but
Speaker 1: things are going surprisingly well for the French economy. I
Speaker 1: have a conversation with the French finance Minister, Bruno Lemaire
Speaker 1: in a few minutes. Hang on for that, but first,
Speaker 1: for much of this pandemic It's fair to say that
Speaker 1: governments have had more than a little control over both
Speaker 1: the economic accelerator and of course the breaks. But with
Speaker 1: the O Macron variant running rampant in many major economies,
Speaker 1: we're seeing a new factor that governments seem to have
Speaker 1: a lot less control overcome into play. Workers calling in sick.
Speaker 1: It's hard to overstate how fast the O Macron virus
Speaker 1: has hit the United States. It took the US ten
Speaker 1: months to register its first ten million cases. In the
Speaker 1: last ten million cases, which in early January took the
Speaker 1: US through the sixty million case mark, have come in
Speaker 1: less than a month. That speed has had consequences for
Speaker 1: businesses that have been very different than what they saw
Speaker 1: at other times in the pen demic. Here's James Bill,
Speaker 1: the CEO of Leto Pizza, a chain that has a
Speaker 1: hundred and ten locations in the Washington, d c. Area.
Speaker 1: Now it's almost kind of like we're resetting the clock again.
Speaker 1: Our our new normal is becoming another new normal. It
Speaker 1: seems like it's also not just the pizza chains workers
Speaker 1: calling in sick. Beal says he's been dealing with another
Speaker 1: round of problems with his suppliers, their staff, problems have
Speaker 1: seen them reduce production shifts and delivery routes. To put
Speaker 1: that in real world restaurant menu terms, that means he
Speaker 1: can't get as many mozzarella sticks as he would like,
Speaker 1: and it takes longer to get them. It's happening pre Amicron,
Speaker 1: but his has gotten Deviline has got worse. Tell me,
Speaker 1: tell me how how you guys have been hit by,
Speaker 1: particularly this latest wave here. I think this latest wave
Speaker 1: is just I think hit A lot of people are
Speaker 1: sort of on certainty. I think that's the biggest Jim Robertson,
Speaker 1: who with a partner owns and operates five Leado franchises
Speaker 1: and the DC area sas. So far, the supply chain
Speaker 1: problems haven't hit the pizzas, although a few times recently
Speaker 1: he has had to make the two hour there and
Speaker 1: back drive to a Virginia warehouse to pick up pizza
Speaker 1: boxes that haven't arrived in time from suppliers like in
Speaker 1: boxes one day, and then you're trying to find containers
Speaker 1: for the wings the next day, and then if you're
Speaker 1: out of moth through all the sticks. So it's just
Speaker 1: but I guess I think understand it. And so as
Speaker 1: long as you explain things to people, I think you're okay.
Speaker 1: It's just the core items. You get nervous. You don't
Speaker 1: want to run out of anything we do to make
Speaker 1: the pizza right. You know, It's one thing if you're
Speaker 1: out a moth through all the sticks and you won't
Speaker 1: hear me company. But if I'm at a you know,
Speaker 1: you know, making be not being able to make the
Speaker 1: pizza sauce or being able to make dough, then you've
Speaker 1: got a big problem. The problem for the US economy is,
Speaker 1: of course, that it's not just a problem affecting the
Speaker 1: supply of deep fried cheese. What started as a series
Speaker 1: of holiday flight cancelations as pilots and other staff fell
Speaker 1: ill or were forced into quarantine, it's rapidly becoming a
Speaker 1: business reality, and factories, hospitals, grocery stores, and at those
Speaker 1: ports where the container bottlenecks were building up last year.
Speaker 1: Even if the hit is temporary, as most anticipate, the
Speaker 1: disruptions enclosures are likely to slow the fragile rebound in
Speaker 1: some sectors and way on businesses plans for the future.
Speaker 1: Nick Bunker, an economist at job Site, indeed, grew up
Speaker 1: in Massachusetts and there everyone remembers the Great Blizzard of
Speaker 1: seventy eight, which dumped as much as four ft of
Speaker 1: snow on parts of New England inside thirty six hours
Speaker 1: in February. It paralyzed the region for weeks. It was
Speaker 1: a major economic hit in the short term, which is
Speaker 1: what he thinks oh maicron will do. Only it has
Speaker 1: quickly become a national event, which means for now thinking
Speaker 1: about the economic impact as the mother of all winter storms,
Speaker 1: this big we a very large, sharp shock to the
Speaker 1: economy in the lade market specifically. But the hope is,
Speaker 1: like a storm, it ends and then there's return to
Speaker 1: prior trends. The impact may also be partly hidden in
Speaker 1: the data. Of course. The monthly job numbers in the
Speaker 1: US and elsewhere are really best at estimating who has
Speaker 1: been fired or hired in any given month. They're not
Speaker 1: as good at telling the story of lost economic output
Speaker 1: due to people calling in sick. And yet there's clearly
Speaker 1: evidence of exactly that. Alaska Airlines has already canceled ten
Speaker 1: percent of its flights in the month of January, citing
Speaker 1: an unprecedented number of staff calling in sick. Lulu Lemon,
Speaker 1: the leisureware company, warned this week that it had been
Speaker 1: forced to reduce operating hours that its stores because of
Speaker 1: lack of staff, which means fewer yoga pants sold and
Speaker 1: lower profits. In California, out breaks of hit luxury retailers
Speaker 1: on Rodeo Drive. Supermarkets are blaming oh Macron Absences for
Speaker 1: contributing to shortages of everything from chicken breasts to organic tofu.
Speaker 1: They've also hit the ports, which is daunting for anyone
Speaker 1: who was paying attention to the supply chain crisis we
Speaker 1: all lived and breathed last year. Jim McKenna is president
Speaker 1: of the Pacific Maritime Association. They negotiate labor agreements for
Speaker 1: seventy companies at twenty nine ports on the West coast
Speaker 1: of the United States. Well, we've seen over the last
Speaker 1: couple of weeks is the virus go from two to
Speaker 1: three a day to twenty a day, and now we're
Speaker 1: doing over a hundred positive tests per day, and in fact,
Speaker 1: on Wednesday we had a hundred and sixty longshoreman test positive.
Speaker 1: There is good news, of course, when workers do have
Speaker 1: to stay homesick, they often aren't out for as long
Speaker 1: as they were with other variants, especially if they are vaccinated.
Speaker 1: Jim Robertson's Leado franchises haven't been hit hard yet. He
Speaker 1: had three employees at one store test positive, but he's
Speaker 1: been able to keep running. And while there weren't many
Speaker 1: people eating lunch in the dining room of one of
Speaker 1: his stores on a visit earlier this week, it wasn't
Speaker 1: entirely dead. Is it changing how you're thinking about the
Speaker 1: business or what your strategy at all, or how your
Speaker 1: protecting or do you think they're going to go back
Speaker 1: to a world where I'm We've got people here eat
Speaker 1: much right now. But yeah, but so when we would
Speaker 1: normally have this restaurant would be full in old days
Speaker 1: at on a even on a Tuesday, and at mean
Speaker 1: would at least be three quarters getting ready to fill
Speaker 1: up because it's a small dining room. But you definitely
Speaker 1: have rethought on a monthly basis what you're gonna do
Speaker 1: to generate more carry out business, how to make it
Speaker 1: more efficient. You know, we now have curb side. We
Speaker 1: used to not have. We have um you know, during
Speaker 1: the height of the COVID we would you know, we
Speaker 1: had it all carry out at that point. We found
Speaker 1: ways to streamline things, open a door to make guests
Speaker 1: for it feel more comfortable. It's really just how we
Speaker 1: make our guests experience the best that can beat through this.
Speaker 1: Back in the kitchen, there were Manzelli sticks going in
Speaker 1: the deep fryer next to a cauldron of mariniri sauce.
Speaker 1: All of the staff were masked, but they were there
Speaker 1: and working, even if one of the printers that buzzed
Speaker 1: into action every so often was playing up, which is
Speaker 1: emblematic of a broader story of adaptation. Lito Pizza was
Speaker 1: facing staff shortages before oh Macron. The company now employs
Speaker 1: fewer people than it did before the pandemic. To adapt,
Speaker 1: Beale says they have quietly cut the choices customers have
Speaker 1: for their pizzas. They've also dropped complicated pasta items from
Speaker 1: the menu to take some of the pressure off kitchen staff.
Speaker 1: So as to planning ahead, and one thing we try
Speaker 1: to do is embrace the technology to see where we
Speaker 1: can reduce pain points as far as the labor So
Speaker 1: prior to COVID, we did three percent online ordering, a
Speaker 1: digital ordering. Now we're up to about thirty digital lording.
Speaker 1: So that actually and that's in a you know, eighteen
Speaker 1: month time frame, so that actually enables us to do
Speaker 1: a greater volume with loss people. In economic terms, that
Speaker 1: of course means they're increasing productivity. That's good for business,
Speaker 1: but that doesn't diminish the hit. The virus is the economy,
Speaker 1: and he keeps finding ways to surprise us, which is
Speaker 1: why millions of us are calling in sick for Bloomberg News.
Speaker 1: I'm Sean Donnon now France and the story of Emmanuel
Speaker 1: Macorn when he came out of nowhere to win the
Speaker 1: presidency in seventeen, just a few months after President Trump
Speaker 1: entered the Oval office, mcral was dubbed the great Liberal Hope,
Speaker 1: a supporter of multinationalism, rules, liberal values, free markets, everything
Speaker 1: you might say the President Trump was not. He was
Speaker 1: going to transform the French economy, lead the European Union
Speaker 1: to bigger and better things, oh and fixed climate change.
Speaker 1: Now it's five years on and he's facing the fight
Speaker 1: of his life to be re elected in April against
Speaker 1: some right wing opponents who are forcing him onto difficult
Speaker 1: political territory. But he does have one ace up his
Speaker 1: sleeve that eluded past French presidents, a strong economy. In
Speaker 1: a minute, We're very lucky to have a chat with
Speaker 1: the French finance minister Bruno Amaire. But first a few
Speaker 1: words with our France economy reporter Will Horribon. Will thanks
Speaker 1: very much, and I should thank you for for helping
Speaker 1: us get that interview with Bruno Lemaire. Just get us
Speaker 1: up to speed. For those who haven't been watching the
Speaker 1: twists and turns of the French presidential election, where do
Speaker 1: we stand? Well? In some ways the French presidential election
Speaker 1: hasn't really got going yet because COVID is very much
Speaker 1: gone in the God in the way. But what we
Speaker 1: see happening is the Macron is he has still has
Speaker 1: quite a lead in the polls um and the people
Speaker 1: who are close closest behind him are those to the
Speaker 1: right of where he's set himself out. Now. The way
Speaker 1: the French elections works, important to have a reminder is
Speaker 1: it's a two round process, so that two candidates who
Speaker 1: get the most votes in the first round go to
Speaker 1: a second round run off. So most poles are showing
Speaker 1: now that Macron will go to a run off against
Speaker 1: one of one of three candidates from his right, and
Speaker 1: and those are There's there's Barry Press, who's a sort
Speaker 1: of center right candidate from Lepic party. There is his perennial,
Speaker 1: the perennial nationalist candidate in French elections, Marine Lapin Lpin
Speaker 1: is always a surname of the perennials, the surname here,
Speaker 1: but this would be if if she went to the
Speaker 1: run off, that would be a repeat of twenty seventeen
Speaker 1: for Macron as well. And then there is a new
Speaker 1: far Candida as well, who's a sort of former polemicist, journalist,
Speaker 1: commentator Eric m. And you you mentioned that it does
Speaker 1: introduce this kind of interesting dynamic, the fact that you
Speaker 1: have the two rounds. So so where do the polls stand. Well,
Speaker 1: Macron does have quite a good lead, and you know
Speaker 1: he's around let's say, in the first round, and then
Speaker 1: the three other candidates are often around neck and neck,
Speaker 1: about seven or eight points behind him. So it seems
Speaker 1: quite clear that he will at the moment, if you
Speaker 1: if the polls are correct, that he will get to
Speaker 1: the second round relatively easily, and then he will have
Speaker 1: to in the second round. It's very different if he
Speaker 1: faces valet becles from the center right who perhaps have
Speaker 1: similar economic program to him, or whether he faces one
Speaker 1: of the more controversial candidates in Marine le Pen. Thinking
Speaker 1: about that second round. You know, it's all very well
Speaker 1: if you if you win the first round, but if
Speaker 1: all of the right candidates together add up to considerably
Speaker 1: more at the moment, considerably more than you know, you
Speaker 1: have a bit more of a risk if you have
Speaker 1: a candidate that's going to unite all of those all
Speaker 1: of those voters. So what's the what's the prospects for that? Again,
Speaker 1: it depends who it is. I think you know that
Speaker 1: some people who voted for Zamore could vote for say
Speaker 1: l Pen in the second round. Some people who voted
Speaker 1: for the Pen in the second round in first round
Speaker 1: could vote for in the second or even the other
Speaker 1: way around. It's very hard to predict that at the moment.
Speaker 1: And another big important factor in this is absenteerism. Will
Speaker 1: will people not actually just not bother voting in the
Speaker 1: second round? Um, And that makes it very hard to
Speaker 1: predict as well. We've said at the start that the
Speaker 1: economy is quite strong, and we gather you've written that
Speaker 1: his advisers are saying, you know, don't necessary you know,
Speaker 1: don't spend all this time talking about immigrants and and
Speaker 1: other difficult issues. You know, go to your strong suit,
Speaker 1: which is the economy is that put at risk by
Speaker 1: by Omicron or does he is that a really strong
Speaker 1: card for him. It could be a strong card depending
Speaker 1: on the timing. Right now, the French economy has recovered
Speaker 1: very well from the pandemic um and sort of noticeably
Speaker 1: better than some of its European peers, and so that
Speaker 1: is definitely an asset for him if that continues in
Speaker 1: the next couple of months. Um there are some very
Speaker 1: strong employment numbers that I think not even not even
Speaker 1: his team expected to see at the end of by
Speaker 1: the end of this year. And also, as we talked
Speaker 1: about in the story that we've written, the so he
Speaker 1: can point to some of the early reforms that you've
Speaker 1: mentioned in in your introduction as being part of the
Speaker 1: reason why some of these some of these positive economic
Speaker 1: results are coming through now. Um. So, depending how he
Speaker 1: plays it, and if if the pandemic comes off the
Speaker 1: boil to a stain extent in the next few weeks,
Speaker 1: then it could be the card that could be very
Speaker 1: useful for him going into this election. Well, thanks to
Speaker 1: you and your excellent contacts at the French Finance Ministry,
Speaker 1: we can hear a lot more about that now in
Speaker 1: my conversation I had with the Finance Mr Puno Lamaire.
Speaker 1: But thanks very much, well, thank you Stephanie. We're delighted
Speaker 1: to have the French Finance Ministra back with us. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to Stephanomics, Ms leminist Thank you. We obviously are
Speaker 1: many people listening to this podcast are in America and
Speaker 1: in other places, and many of the stories we see
Speaker 1: coming out of France in the run up to this
Speaker 1: presidential election have been about immigration, security and of course
Speaker 1: the pandemic. But President Macon came to office five years
Speaker 1: ago on a platform of nomic change. We were going
Speaker 1: to see a wave of supply side reforms that would
Speaker 1: end decades of relative economic decline for France. So do
Speaker 1: you think that macronomics has succeeded? What's happened to that agenda?
Speaker 1: I think that maccon has been successful in restoring the
Speaker 1: French economy and in making the French economy more competitive.
Speaker 1: And the promise that he made in twenty seventeen was
Speaker 1: to introduce a total of the whole of the French
Speaker 1: taxasion system, of the French competitiveness for the sake of
Speaker 1: having more jobs and more growth. And here we are.
Speaker 1: We have more growth with the level of six goals
Speaker 1: for one, and we have restored the pre crisis activity
Speaker 1: level no later than November of last year. And as
Speaker 1: far as employment is concerned, we have the highest employment
Speaker 1: rate in fifty years, sixty seven point five for the
Speaker 1: fifteen to sixty or four years old. So I really
Speaker 1: want to in see on the fact that the economic
Speaker 1: policies that have been introduced by Quison backron is a success,
Speaker 1: success for France and a success for the French people.
Speaker 1: You're right that employment is stronger than it has been
Speaker 1: in a while, but unemployment still much higher than in Germany.
Speaker 1: And if you look at the forecast of our economists
Speaker 1: of other economists, they don't seem to expect higher long
Speaker 1: term growth rates in France as a result of any
Speaker 1: of these policies. So so in that sense, macronomics has
Speaker 1: does not seem to have had an impact. Now I
Speaker 1: show your point of your the necessity to reinforce those results,
Speaker 1: but I would like to underline that we have a
Speaker 1: very sound and solid basis to reinforce the French economy
Speaker 1: and to make better over the next years. The level
Speaker 1: of corporate stacks was thirty three point three in twenty
Speaker 1: seventeen and we reduce that level to twent for all
Speaker 1: companies in tw two. We also have very positive results
Speaker 1: on the creation of private companies and on the scalp
Speaker 1: of our startups. So I think that there is a
Speaker 1: need to continue reducing the level of taxation on private companies.
Speaker 1: I think that we have to reduce the level of
Speaker 1: social charges on the highest wages if we want to
Speaker 1: be more competitive for the technological industries. And we also
Speaker 1: have to think about the best way of improving the
Speaker 1: skills of the French workers. But my point is we
Speaker 1: are on the right track. We did the necessary reforms.
Speaker 1: There is a need to do more, there is a
Speaker 1: need to do better, but we are on the right
Speaker 1: track by improving the French offer, which was to meet
Speaker 1: the key point in the French echomy. You have talked
Speaker 1: about the energy price rise that the whole of Europe
Speaker 1: is seeing as an absolute emergency. Clearly it's a massive
Speaker 1: issue in the UK and other places. Households are bracing
Speaker 1: themselves for maybe fifty increases in their energy bills in
Speaker 1: April in the UK. France has made this what's from
Speaker 1: the outside an extraordinary commitment to cap the impact on
Speaker 1: households this year to only a four percent rise. You're
Speaker 1: the finance Mr. Can you really afford that to write
Speaker 1: that blank check to French households and who's who's going
Speaker 1: to pay for it? In the end, It's an absolute
Speaker 1: necessity and I think that we would have to share
Speaker 1: the cost of course between the French state and we
Speaker 1: are already being eight billion yours to reduce the level
Speaker 1: of the energy prices, the electricity prices for both the
Speaker 1: households and the private companies, and we will need to
Speaker 1: do more because increase on energy prices. The increase on
Speaker 1: electricity prices might reach thirty five to for the year
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two. So there is an absolute necessity to
Speaker 1: intervene if we do not want to have very strong
Speaker 1: difficulties for the households and a threat on the private companies,
Speaker 1: especially on the industrial companies. So we have decided first
Speaker 1: of all to reduce the level of taxation on electricity prices.
Speaker 1: This is the first response that we have given with
Speaker 1: the Prime Minister to the increase on electricity prices. But
Speaker 1: it won't be enough. So we are working very closely
Speaker 1: with a d F electricity refunds to try to build
Speaker 1: a second response. We will which will complement the first
Speaker 1: one and which will allow us to stick to the
Speaker 1: promise given by present Macon to cap the executive prices
Speaker 1: to four in twenty two. I hope that we would
Speaker 1: find the response, that we would be able to proposal
Speaker 1: response no lager than the end of this week. And
Speaker 1: do you see that as an economic necessity or a
Speaker 1: political necessity? Because I look around Europe and there's the
Speaker 1: same kind of energy price prices coming down the track
Speaker 1: for many governments, and no government, no other major government,
Speaker 1: is offering this kind of support, but they're not just
Speaker 1: about to face a presidential election. This, first of all,
Speaker 1: in economic necessity because it is less costly to protect
Speaker 1: the industrial plans from this huge increase of the executive prices,
Speaker 1: rather than providing help to the salaries, providing help to
Speaker 1: those companies because they are threatened by possibly shut down.
Speaker 1: I really think that this is the right response, the
Speaker 1: right economic response to this electricity crisis. I also want
Speaker 1: to insist on the necessity to have a long term approach,
Speaker 1: which won't be enough to have a protection given by
Speaker 1: boast of French state and by a deaf We also
Speaker 1: need to have a long term response based on changes
Speaker 1: in the electricity market, the European electricity market, because I
Speaker 1: think that they need for changes in the European electricity market.
Speaker 1: It will be also the core of the French EU presidency.
Speaker 1: What is your advice to to other governments who are
Speaker 1: all dealing with the same issue and they can also
Speaker 1: see what the potential cost could be of putting the
Speaker 1: bill for these energy price rises. I think that may
Speaker 1: be why they are willing to have households really shoulder
Speaker 1: the burden over the next year. What do you think
Speaker 1: of the risk of that you let households face this
Speaker 1: kind of maybe thirty forty increase in their energy bills.
Speaker 1: First of all, I really think that there is no
Speaker 1: possibility for our people to have such an increase in
Speaker 1: their electricity bills thirty when the average electricity bill in
Speaker 1: France is around nine euros. That's something that the all
Speaker 1: the people cannot afford, and that's why there is a
Speaker 1: need for a strong response. Then I really think that
Speaker 1: the single, fair and efficient response over the long term
Speaker 1: is based on one single word. Independence. We need to
Speaker 1: be more independent on the production of energy. We need
Speaker 1: to reduce the level of dependency on gas production by
Speaker 1: Russia and by other foreign states, which means that we
Speaker 1: have to build both new nuclear plants. That's the response
Speaker 1: that we wanted to give. We put on back home
Speaker 1: to the risk of these increasing energy prices, and we
Speaker 1: also have to rely on renewable energies. But the real
Speaker 1: response is to have more independence on the energy production
Speaker 1: everywhere in Europe. Do you think as we look at
Speaker 1: the fallout, the longer term fallout from the pandemic, the
Speaker 1: one that is most obvious clearly is inflation, and not
Speaker 1: just energy prices, but inflation that's come from supply chain
Speaker 1: issues and potentially also the labor market being quite tight
Speaker 1: in many places, people changing their attitude to work in
Speaker 1: some countries. Do you think inflation could end up as
Speaker 1: a greater political risk to governments than the pandemic itself.
Speaker 1: We have to be vigilant. We have to understand what
Speaker 1: is behind this increase on prices, and I think that
Speaker 1: what is behind and what explains half of the increase
Speaker 1: of prices is the energy prices, and that's why the
Speaker 1: long term response must be based on more independence on
Speaker 1: energy production, and then we need to be very careful,
Speaker 1: very vigilant on inflation or assessment remains that this level
Speaker 1: of inflation remains a temporary inflation. But let's be very clear.
Speaker 1: When I'm speaking about temporary inflation, I'm not speaking about days.
Speaker 1: I'm not speaking about weeks. I'm speaking about months. And
Speaker 1: I think that we would have to leave with a
Speaker 1: pretty high level of inflation by the end of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two, because of the lack of energy, because of
Speaker 1: the difficulties in the supply chains, because of the situation
Speaker 1: in China, which has decided to close its borders. For
Speaker 1: all these reasons, I think that we would have to
Speaker 1: leave with a pretty high level of inflation by the
Speaker 1: end of twenty twenty two. So this is a temporary inflation.
Speaker 1: But we have to understand that the word temporary means
Speaker 1: some month and not some weeks. We have different definitions
Speaker 1: of transient in the US, and people are certainly changing
Speaker 1: their view of that. If we step back a little bit,
Speaker 1: you will remember, you will certainly know five years ago,
Speaker 1: people around the world so President Maquon as Europe's great
Speaker 1: liberal hope. He seemed to be this new, very confident
Speaker 1: blend of the best liberal instincts from the right and
Speaker 1: the left of French politics European politics. But now we
Speaker 1: look at the presidential campaign, he's he's polling only just
Speaker 1: ahead of two extreme right candidates, one of which we
Speaker 1: didn't even know about a few months ago. Is the
Speaker 1: conclusion the rest of the world to draw that that
Speaker 1: middle road that President mcrow was walking is impossible in
Speaker 1: today's climate, just can't be done. No. I think, on
Speaker 1: the contrary, that he um is the evidence that there
Speaker 1: is a path for shuctule reforms, for the improvement of
Speaker 1: the competitiveness of an economy and for the possibility of
Speaker 1: giving to every citizens the chance of being successful. Of course,
Speaker 1: we are facing a very stronger position from the extremist parties,
Speaker 1: but that's the case everywhere in the Western world. It
Speaker 1: has been the case in the United States, it has
Speaker 1: been the case in Italy, it has been the case
Speaker 1: in the UK. So it is the case in every
Speaker 1: Western country. But the true is that there is a
Speaker 1: possibility for this way to be successful. And I'm deeply
Speaker 1: convinced that at the next president short election in France,
Speaker 1: Emma will be successful because he has given the evidence
Speaker 1: that if we are taking the right economic decisions, we
Speaker 1: can get some very strong wizards. Once again, we are
Speaker 1: on the right pass We should stick to that path
Speaker 1: because it gives results to the French population. But just
Speaker 1: to push back a little bit, those two extreme right
Speaker 1: candidates are polling between them significantly more than President mcrow,
Speaker 1: And when one looks at the stories and the language
Speaker 1: from the presidential campaign, it feels like his his response,
Speaker 1: his political response in order to win the election, has
Speaker 1: been to move away from his liberal instincts and to
Speaker 1: play up perhaps two or of the the illiberal or
Speaker 1: the anti immigration side of French politics. So um, again,
Speaker 1: from the outside, that seems like quite a dispiriting development
Speaker 1: that the only way he can succeed is actually by
Speaker 1: moving away from the liberal vision that he had outlined.
Speaker 1: It depends on what you mean by a liberal revision.
Speaker 1: If a liberal revision means to believe in the possibility
Speaker 1: for every citizen to build its own success, which is
Speaker 1: I think at the core of the poltical liberalism, I
Speaker 1: could share that point of view. If you mean by
Speaker 1: a liberal approach the fact that there is no need
Speaker 1: for the state to intervene in the economy, I would
Speaker 1: not share this point of view because the crisis just
Speaker 1: proved one single thing. We need the intervention of the
Speaker 1: French state or of the urban states to as the
Speaker 1: consequences of the crisis. And if we have been successful
Speaker 1: in twenty one to face the crisis, to protect the
Speaker 1: companies and to protect the workers, and also to have
Speaker 1: a very quick and sound economic we bond. That's because
Speaker 1: the states and the public powers decided to intervene and
Speaker 1: to give very strong responses to the crisis. It was
Speaker 1: not the case in twenty eight and in twenty tendering
Speaker 1: the financial crisis, and we were not successful during the
Speaker 1: last financial crisis. We have drawn the lessons of these
Speaker 1: financial crisis by asking the French state and by asking
Speaker 1: the Upan states to intervene on the market to protect
Speaker 1: the companies and to protect the salaries, and it proved
Speaker 1: to be more efficient. It does not mean that I
Speaker 1: think that the state would have to intervene in every
Speaker 1: situation and under every circumstances. It just means that in
Speaker 1: a period of economic crisis, we need the intervention of
Speaker 1: state and we need to support other states. We did
Speaker 1: speak several years ago. You have managed to be Finance
Speaker 1: Minister through the whole of President mcross presidency, which is
Speaker 1: not is quite a rare thing in France. I gather,
Speaker 1: do you want to stay in your job if you
Speaker 1: get the chance, or is there a better job in
Speaker 1: government that you would like. There is no better job
Speaker 1: than being finance minister. And I will just finished by
Speaker 1: insisting on the necessity of having more stability in French politics.
Speaker 1: You know, when we are talking about economy, about finance,
Speaker 1: about coming back to some public finances, about the necessity
Speaker 1: of having more industry in France, it takes time. And
Speaker 1: the lesson that I draw from these five years as
Speaker 1: a French finance minister is that if you want to
Speaker 1: build something solid for the French nation and for the
Speaker 1: French people, you need time. Time is of the essence.
Speaker 1: If you want to be successful, you need more stebility
Speaker 1: into French politics. Bruno Lamaire, thank you very much, Thank
Speaker 1: you so much. That's it for Stephonomics. We'll be back
Speaker 1: next week. But for more news from Bloomberg Economics, do
Speaker 1: follow us Economics on Twitter and maybe check out my
Speaker 1: cover story for this week's Business Week on the year
Speaker 1: ahead for the global economy. This episode was produced by
Speaker 1: Magnus Henrickson, with special thanks to Sean Donnan, will Horribin
Speaker 1: and the French finance Minister Bruno Lamaire. Mike Sasso is
Speaker 1: executive producer of Stephonomics and the head of Bloomberg podcast
Speaker 1: is Francesca Leap