The opening of the Paris Air Show gives the opportunity to constate and to celebrate, at a time when we don’t stop to talk about de-industrialization and France industrial decline, the exceptional success of the French companies in these activities. To identify the reasons which have leaded to these successes is indispensable to bring the appropriate remedies to the sectors, which, them, are today in a difficult situation. Figures are speaking volumes. The Airbus stock market value has overpassed 100 billion euro and Safran, which produces the aircraft engines, 60 billion. The two companies have become the world leaders on their markets. The Airbus order book, in June 2023, contains 7 200 airplanes when its rival Boeing one, which had merged with Mac Donnell Douglas, contains only 5 300. And must be added to the Airbus order book the 500 A320 the Indian company Indigo has announced the acquisition at the opening of the Show and which will be delivered between 2030 and 2035. Safran which profits from the Airbus successes is also now thanks to its orders and its financial results by large overpassing its competitors Pratt and Whitney and Rolls Royce.

How did we arrive there? Through the applying of two essential rules in the industry, to understand client expectations and to create the right partnerships. The success was not guaranteed regarding aircraft construction. France had, with the Concorde, put innovation and, it must be recognized, the search for a kind of national proudness, before market expectations. Through giving the priority to a very up-market transport mode and so very costly, the executives at that time, had not understood that, to the opposite, the future of air transportation was in putting at client disposal tickets with a price that the highest number of persons could afford. To travel from Paris to New-York in less than three hours was maybe interesting for Chief Executive Officers which had a very busy agenda but definitely not for the large majority of potential travelers.

The French aircraft maker at that time, Aerospatiale, then knew how to create partnerships with European industrialists in order to offer the plane corresponding to the companies expectations. In 1971 is launched the A 300 program, followed ten years after by the A310. The range concept will take its whole signification from 1984 with the successive launches of the A320, the A330 and the A340. Progressively, the partnerships with the European industrialists are becoming stronger and EADS, which will become Airbus, will bear in 2000.

Regarding engines, the method is the same, based on the choice of the right partner. The links between SNECA and General Electric are already tight in 1981, especially to build the CFM56 engine. But the British from Rolls Royce launch a heavy lobbying campaign in the name of Europe, which, coming from London and in a sector where the country has always favored the agreements with the American industry, was at least surprising, in order this partnership with GE was broken. The State will not be convinced and the CFM56 will obtain a world success. The reasoning was right. The French-American partnership allowed an easier access to the two biggest aircraft makers localized on the two sides of the Atlantic Ocean, EADS and after Airbus and Boeing.

In the military area, the main role is attributed to the State which has known through its choices and a judicious programming of its orders, give there too to the French industry one of the first ranks in the world. In 1982, The Air Army renounces to the Mirage 4000 which was supposed to come after the Mirage 2000 but asks Dassault to study a new model, better adapted to its needs. It will be the Rafale. It will take a lot of time to get a strong position on the world market and the first orders for exportation will come more than ten years after its putting into operation. But it is today a technologic and commercial success.

France has known a foreign trade deficit above 150 billion euros these last twelve months. Excluding energy, it reaches 63 billion. The aeronautics and the space industry are ones of the rare sectors with a surplus which, on one year, has been above 25 billion. During the same period, the car industry has registered a 20 billion deficit; these two activities have, yet, little different cost structures. The successes of the first one and the failures of the second so come from the strategic choices of these enterprises and not from external factors, frequently quoted in order to the responsibility of the top management will not be mentioned.

In order to explain the persisting foreign deficit, it had been first denounced the too high level of the euro, a trial which was in reality against the European construction. But that excuse has not durably resisted. Italy, which was in the euro zone, was accumulating surplus as Germany. Another reason, quite so deprived of sense, was then beard, the excessive labor costs and taxes. That will generate from 2012 huge transfers in favor of enterprises financed by household and by an increase of the public indebtedness, but without any results regarding the industry rebound because the trade deficit will not stop growing.

The success of the aeronautic industry, whose production costs were definitely not lower than these of the other sectors is the result of the good strategic choices of the managers of the related enterprises, of the perfect suitability of the offered products to the clients needs and of the conclusion of international partnerships which revealed themselves perfectly adapted to the situation of the targeted markets. The comparison with the car industry confirms that analysis. The Dacia acquisition and the decision to import in France its vehicles have destabilized Renault production, which has leaded to delocalize the assembly lines. The partnership with Nissan has certainly allowed the executives to satisfying their ego and to increasing their payrolls but that has closed for Renault the access to the three biggest car markets in the world, China, the United States and Japan, along with opening to the Japanese group the French market, going even sometimes until to put at its disposal its distribution network.

The de-industrialization of France has resulted neither from the euro nor from excessive charges weighting on enterprises but from the wrong choices of too many group executives without the State, which was sometimes a shareholder, was conscient of that. Time has so come to reverse that trend. We can be happy that France constitutes a fruitful birthplace for enterprises creations and that the country pretends to become a start-up nation, but that will not be enough. The Viva Tech success is good thing but it must not divert our attention from essential things because the success these young enterprises founded on technological bets is by nature chancy. Nobody had forecast the successes of Microsoft and Apple.

The demonstration that the aeronautic industry is going to do during the Paris Air Show is so essential. It is the best possible example of the France industrial ability and the lesson which must be drawn is that the success of an enterprise lays in its culture and in the right choices of their managers to give an answer to their clients and in their ability to set the right partnerships. The State, with its orders, can contribute to these successes but its first responsibility is, when it is neither a client nor an important shareholder, when arrive imprudent acquisitions or hazardous growth choices, to be watchful. Influence can also contributes to the success of the State as a strategist.