The warning signs are multiplying

In the space of a few weeks, France’s economic dynamics have changed fundamentally. The normalisation approach that has prevailed since the end of the Covid-19 crisis and the end of the “whatever it takes” programme has been abandoned. By 2022, France has managed to return to the average level of economic activity of the last fifteen years, with a stable number of cases handled by the Interministerial Committee for Industrial Restructuring (Ciri), the preservation of more than 50,000 jobs and a dominance of the industrial sector.

From August 2023, however, the situation deteriorated alarmingly. Market indicators were very poor in September: -16% in retail, -ll% in food retail… These are real slumps that are difficult to bear in many sectors. If we look at the companies that are failing today, we are talking about 37,000 jobs affected. You have to go back to the 2016 crisis to find a figure of this magnitude,” warned Florent Berckmans, Partner at Eight Advisory.

On the horizon is the need for more complex and far-reaching restructuring, which could potentially have more serious social consequences. Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) could play a key role in solving these problems, but the M&A market is currently sluggish.

Read Emmanuelle Duten’s article published in Les Echos Capital Finance, here!