“This should be the great national cause.” Guest of the RTL-LCI-Le Figaro Grand Jury on Sunday, the number 1 of the Medef, Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux, wanted to issue a “warning cry” on the lack of housing construction in France, affirming that the country is going “to the – in the face of a catastrophe” on this subject. For the president of the employers’ union, the gap between construction and housing demand has reached worrying levels. The number of new homes built will certainly be “below 300,000 in 2024”, far from the 500,000 needed per year. According to his analysis, this situation “should be the great cause of the five-year term” because this tension between demand and supply creates price levels which “burden the purchasing power” of the French.
Asked about inflation and requests for salary increases, he thus recalled, without denying food inflation, that housing for those who are not owners was the expenditure center “which matters most” in a budget. . He was also worried about the fate of the French who get up early – according to the famous expression of Nicolas Sarkozy – “who earn their living but experience difficult end of the month”. Faced with inflation, he considered legitimate the requests for a raise from employees but he also wanted to emphasize that last year on this point companies, especially the largest ones, had “done the job”.
In contact with the field, he thus noted that requests for salary increases are the major subject encountered by French business leaders – with recruitment difficulties. On this point, the number one of the Medef thus castigated the fact that in France, even today, “work pays, but does not pay enough compared to non-work”.