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Eric Verhaeghe: "Why I slammed the door of the MEDEF"
MEDEF speaks in a world that does not exist
No, the cost of labor is not too high, it is the greed of the oligarchy that we must attack! Former Director of Social Affairs of the Employers' Federation of Insurance, Eric Verhaeghe slams the door of the MEDEF. He denounced an economic doctrine that endangers society and democracy.
You have left noisily Medef that you represent in many joint organizations such as, for example, APEC, CNAV or Unedic. In the same vein, you are publishing a book in which you question, one by one, all the dogmas of economic management. What was the trigger?
Eric Verhaeghe. I wanted to exercise a right of inventory on the dominant economic thinking for forty years. Born in the late 1960s, I am of a generation that never knew that the crisis, a generation that has lived in the nostalgia of the war boom. With the implosion of the Soviet model, when the market economy has remained as the only global system, there was a bet: the more we develop this system, the sooner we arrive at the essence of free market competition and perfect, more soon we will be successful and we will reconnect easily with the growth of post-war boom. During the 1980s, it was the off-going privatization and during the 1990s, it has lowered the cost Labour - we still spent 1.5 percent of GDP in tax expense ... The result is terrible. In fact, after forty years, not only it does not get better, but on the contrary, the system is destroying itself. This crisis is not due to market rigidities, but rather to its flexibility. This forces us to question our old beliefs. Collectively, the elites of this country can not continue to argue that earnings before 2008 will get us out of the doldrums, they are the cause of the crisis!
"Predators", "nomenklatura capitalist, "" hirelings media power '... The vocabulary you use in flower which your book may surprise coming from a player in the system ...
Eric Verhaeghe. These are the words of someone who has seen ... Today, everyone must take responsibility. I am talking to people. And bosses are citizens, too. Believe that working in the employer universe means necessarily endorse the doctrines that are dangerous for the market economy is a mistake. And I said very clearly today the doctrine of MEDEF is potentially dangerous because it produces a systemic risk. To me, what emerges from the crisis of 2008 is that the sustainability of the market economy is much more to employees and their bosses.
By removing the categorical imperatives of wage moderation and tax cuts, you attack the heart of the traditional demands of employers. The chamber is not as "realistic" as it claims?
Eric Verhaeghe. MEDEF Laurence Parisot tells of a world that does not exist. He talks of people overpaid, state that has too much revenue, he made a number of economic observations are totally beside the point. I remember one meeting in November 2008 on social protection, where patrons present were engaged in an exercise of comparing their pensions cap. That day, we took out a listing with the 500 largest pension cap of France, and the only question that arose was: who is in the top 100? The reality of France today, here: on one hand, employees who feel that it works, and the other, a number of employers whose primary concern in times of crisis is to ensure that they are better paid than others. I call this syndrome "May 10, 1940" in turmoil, the obsession of the General Staff is to look after his living. Are my words are harsh? Yes they are, but because the reality is!
repeatedly, you compare the privileged today to the nobility of the ancien regime ...
Eric Verhaeghe. The paradigm of 1789 allows us to understand our time ... Before the Revolution, there is a crisis of public finances and an economic crisis; elites benefit and are loathe to make any effort to stem the crisis. Today, we have exactly the same phenomenon: for example, does one measure that the public debt, it's guaranteed savings for very large incomes? When Liliane Bettencourt receives a check for 30 million euros for the tax shield, that check is financed by debt that Liliane Bettencourt buys as government bonds and, hence, when the refund is him a new gift. The tax shield operation is a shell game that increases the wealth of high income in the fund by the overwhelming majority of citizens.
While Denis Kessler, long a leader in insurance and employers at all, had welcomed the election of Nicolas Sarkozy who was in his view, permit to break with the legacy program of the National Resistance (CNR), one can, you listen, imagine you closer to some of the goals of that NRC ... "The establishment of genuine economic and social democracy involving the eviction of large feudal economic and financial management of the economy, "it speaks to you?
Eric Verhaeghe. Social Security as it exists is no longer the declination of that goal. Today, it is the employees who carry the bulk of the financing of social protection. In 1945, work was the source of wealth, but in 2010, the work is much less. There is a very large part of wealth is now generated from the money itself ... Continue to sit on the Social Security work alone, this leads to employees wear a weight exorbitant. It was a matter of substance, there ...
For your professional position of Director of Social Affairs at the French Federation of Insurance Companies (FFSA) ...
Eric Verhaeghe. Ex-professional position! I am not yet licensed, but it's progress ...
... You can be suspected of wanting to play into private insurance eyeing the loot ...
Eric Verhaeghe. Well, I'll answer seamlessly. When the FFSA has proposed in November to defend from a position consisting of MEDEF explicitly to reduce the performance of pensions to support the sale of insurance products, I wrote to Bernard Spitz (President of the FFSA - Ed) that I was no longer agree with these positions . I told him of my intention to leave and in so doing, to abandon all my money in employer organizations.
Is there debate within the MEDEF?
Eric Verhaeghe. On pensions, there was a real debate because this issue was followed by Jean-François Pilliard, the UIMM. It is a true professional is a true man of dialogue. On labor law, there is no debate within the MEDEF: there is a highly authoritarian behavior that I described, and I persist, immobility Brezhnev.
What a picture!
Eric Verhaeghe. When I was little, my family of craftsmen in the building, it was said already: "There are too many charges! "Thirty years later, the pundits continue in the same vein. This speech is eternal in the business, large or small, whatever the times, regardless of the amount of contributions. What we lack today it is an ability to challenge the taboos of thinking. And it is certain that the MEDEF has no intention of doing so. Apart from its traditional litany - "unburden us of all the charges that we" - there is no thought ...
same time, it works: just look at the amounts at stake ...
Eric Verhaeghe. 30 billion euros per year to reduce charges!
How to break with this system where the company pays instead of the holders capital?
Eric Verhaeghe. The question is not whether to reduce charges of ... Maybe he should, after all! The real issue is the democratic control is exercised. And what is not permissible is to keep alive the myth of a market economy would be oppressed by the state, when in reality, the market economy is subsidized by the taxpayer and that She refuses at the same time control over the subsidies it receives. I advocate transparency. Can resume a simple system under the 1789 Declaration: "All citizens have the right to ascertain, by themselves or by their representatives, the necessity of the public contribution, to consent freely, to follow the manual and determine the amount, basis, collection and duration. "Once you put a euro in a public activity, the person shall have the right to demand accountability on the use of the euro.
On a more global, we must undo the influence on social life of a few large companies, often from the public, who their capital structure's ability to dominate. This is the famous case of companies called too big to fail "(too big to fail - Ed). While the citizen is obliged to find an insurance contract for any activity, banks, for example, are entitled to free guarantee of the State, whatever they do. We must begin by informing citizens about the exorbitant privileges of these large groups, we must collectively and being aware that it is selected. I favor the dismantling of the very large companies: once a company reaches a size that makes more powerful a state, it must be dismantled. Do you know when the company is a threat to free competition. I do not see why we would not have this power if it threatens the sovereignty of peoples.
Singular path of a freedman
"You will not put myself in a small box" bet Eric Verhaeghe. Worker's son raised in Liege (Belgium), drawing from the Revolution of 1789 much of its political references - "France, that was it for me, the people freed from tyranny," he writes - this quarantine, serving the FFSA and the MEDEF since 2007, has kept his career high official passed by the ENA a certain conception of public interest. So far so good!, The book he just released by Éditions Jacob-Duvernet (19.90 euros), reflected in abundance.
Interview by Thomas Lemahieu
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