The point is at the heart of the political debate and of the economic policy as the decline of the French industry, despite all the measures taken for more than ten years, seems more and more obvious. But to appreciate its extent, we must not take the wrong indicator. The most frequently quoted is the continuous diminution of the industry value-added share in the GDP. But it is not the most convincing because this relative fall may also come from a stronger growth of the other sectors of activity, especially in the services with the development of tourism or of the financial activities, which is not the case in Germany for instance.

The continuous reduction of the employment is also quoted but it can result from the modernization of the production tools with the roboticization or the 3-D printing, or from the choice of the industrial groups in favor of the outsourcing of the technical functions to consulting firms which will manage, for instance, their digitalization. That has profited to companies like Cap Gemini or Dassault Systems which are among the main computer services enterprises in Europe. Anyway, the share of the employment in agriculture has endured a much higher fall which has not impeached France to still being one of the major European producers.

The true proof of the industrial decline is to be found in the evolution of the foreign trade of manufactured goods for 20 years. This sector had always carried a surplus and became in deficit from 2003. Between 2014 and 2022, the CAF/FOB deficit jumped from 32 to 105 billion. The country with which France has the highest deficit, which will not surprise anybody, is China with 54 billion. To the opposite, Italy, with13 billion overpasses Germany with 11 billion. To reverse this trend and to reindustrialize France, it must be recognized that the policies followed have failed and, moreover to understand why.

For more than ten years, with as an objective to reestablish the competitiveness of the enterprises, every year, tens of billions have been spent through tax relieves or social charges reductions. Anyway, this trend has not ended because is permanently evocated the necessity to reduce “production taxes”, a well-chosen wording to make to believe that will allow to achieve the production recovery, and so industry one.

Two reasons explain these failures. The transfers in favor of the enterprises were not targeted. Industry has only received a small part of them, most of them going to private, as big retailers, and public services as to the financial sector. The reasoning was wrong. The labor costs, whose reduction was demanded, were not at all at the origin of the market shares falls and of the trade deficit because the workers employed in the big industrial German groups which were the major exporters, had higher labor costs without having a productivity higher than their French competitors.

To the opposite, the measure which has consisted in focusing the reductions on the low wages and so in reducing its impact on the qualified jobs, which are at the heart of the success of industrial companies, was particularly inappropriate. But all these measures did not fight the true problem, and if we want to reindustrialize France, we must become aware of it.

There is not a unique cause of the des-industrialization because some sectors have been heavily hurt and many enterprises have disappeared or have passed under the control of foreign groups when other activities have known exceptional success as Safran et Airbus, which became world leaders or the giants of luxury, pharmaceutical or cosmetics products. There was first the temptation of easiness which has leaded to massively de-localize in China to increase the margins and the volumes. But other solutions were available, as show it German and Italian enterprises. There were also major strategic mistakes done by the top management which has leaded to the disappearance of national jewels as Alcatel or Pechiney and of the productions which were going with them or to pass under foreign control as Lafarge or Essilor with the consequences on employment and on the future survival of their industrial plants.

The State did not know how to play its role as a Strategist-State, when, as it was a Renault shareholder, it has left the group, after the Dacia acquisition, offering to the Romanian enterprise the access to the national market to the detriment of its own production units. It has abandoned all its pretentions under the pretext of fulfilling the European directives, to use public orders to strengthen the industrial capacities. Ten years were necessary to recognize the role of nuclear in the country energetic independence and in its contribution to the reduction of the CO2 emissions. It has weakened a strategic industrial activity when in the same time it was offering subventions for the acquisitions of electric vehicles which were using essential components produced outside of the country when it was not the vehicles themeslves, whatever they were coming from the U.S. or from China itself.

The success of the re-industrialization goes through the appointment at the head of the concerned enterprises of managers attached to their culture and who, in their professional cursus, will have known the groups different businesses on the ground, will have taken knowledge of the clients needs and who will have closely followed the innovation trends inside as outside of the company they will have to manage The fact that they have at their disposal in the political world or in the high administration influence networks is not a necessary condition and even less a sufficient condition to be successful.

The United States have just adopted with the Inflation Reduction Act industrial policy tools and Germany is preparing itself to do the same. France must follow and not just be satisfied with announcements effects. To become a “start-up nation” is good but it would be better to succeed in becoming an “industrial start-up nation”. To promote a “green industry” seems to be a seducing idea but the priority must be to give financial supports to the whole industry to invest and to reduce its emissions. The success of the current new technologies is hazardous and if it materializes, it will only occur in the long term. From that time, the French companies must not be penalized by their emissions to the profit of the foreign companies which would find there a new opportunity to penetrate the French market.

The State has so a double message to deliver. It must recognize that the solution is not the cheque book and that the passed policies have not brought the expected result, because, too frequently, they looked for satisfying different objectives in the same time, frequently contradictory ones, as when charges reductions on low wages were decided to the detriment of qualified jobs. It must give to itself the legal tools, notably the fiscal ones, to slow the new de-localizations in making them less attractive and it must be able to directly or indirectly support all the re-localization projects. It must, at last, put the enterprises executives in face of their responsibilities through informing that the very high pay rolls have only a justification if the enterprises results are consistent with the re-localization project and if they are not the fruit of decisions going in the opposite direction.

Its success so will depend from a collective commitment and also from consumers one who are not enough conscious of the consequences of their choices. If progresses are currently made in favor of environment, it would be the time they understand that through giving the priority to goods made in France, they will be the first beneficiaries, regarding their job as their purchasing power.