Before adding I was elected for five years

November 20, 2011 12:00 AM

Anyone who calls the standard of the Medef in this time falls directly on Laurence Parisot. The patron saint of patterns, lent his voice to the campaign of communication launched mid-June by his organization to promote alternance training. And its slogan "company, is the life" passes loop on the phone home of Grove avenue. Ernest-Antoine Seilliere could do the same Non. The former President of the Medef too forced the cartoon to make this kind of risk. Obviously, Laurence Parisot, which today celebrates its first anniversary at the head of the employers, succeeded the climate change that it had promised. It has "dusted" home, say friends, it it was "décongestionnée" and put an end to "pool parties" by establishing a calm way. "For a year, it is striking, business leaders realized that Laurence, with his personality off standards, could correct their disastrous image," explains Jean-Luc Placet (cabinet IHRD), one of the representatives of the Medef in the economic and social Council. "For the moment, it's work", observes Jean-François Vieira, President of the Medef Charente. "It represents better than the expensive baron, even if the line is basically the same", said Marc Segard (Les Artisans du Bois), President of the Medef des Alpes.

The first woman ever elected to the Presidency of the employers for its part is that the year has been hard because the function is very involved. But, praised or criticized, it is now installed in the landscape. "Laurence has changed, she took the insurance by becoming a public figure," observes his sister Catherine. Such a pointillist painter, it threw its first keys of colors on a still soft table, which the drawing will appear in two or three years, justified his entourage. It is true that it seems to never pressed, sharing the idea of Alain Etchegoyen, former Commissioner of the Plan, according to which "public people do not spend enough time to think the words that they speak". This tempo by its novelty is generally misunderstood media. "In France, we would like radishes grow in fifteen days, but need them three weeks," said the President of the Medef Paris, Rémy tap-Duffo (Henner).

The reform of the statutes will wait

A little jostled by these developments, management settings, on the merits, are bewildered. Because, for the moment, the patron saint of patterns stare at repeatedly addressed topics: do love company, building bridges to civil society, explain the economy... Of course, it also stopped commendable decisions, by putting forward Pierre Nanterme (Accenture), the President of the economic commission. He, unlike his predecessor Daniel button (Société Générale), multiplies public interventions to decrypt the "unpublished" world in which live businesses. For the first time also, the Medef has taken position this year on the WTO or the remuneration of company bosses. The President has also established a monthly appointment with its Chairmen of commission, in which the doctrine developed "in a very democratic manner", welcomes Francis da Costa (company FCC), in charge of the training. Finally, it brought its agents who work in the labor unions of health insurance and the commercial courts, which had not been for twelve years. But, conversely, some initiatives pose question, as the negotiation on diversity or the meeting of young graduates and businesses in difficult neighbourhoods. And, to the regret of many of his friends, Laurence Parisot does not yet contested to the device. It reaffirmed before the territorial Medef meeting end may in Port-Camargue, the reform of the Constitution desired by a part of the base is not the order of the day. "Laurence a lot wrong with the contradiction," laments a loved one. "Unfortunately, internally, people dare not speak to him and the effects of Court developed," says another. Sign, perhaps, that the lines will eventually move, it has decided to attend the weekly meeting of Directors of service, alongside the Director-General, Jacques Creyssel. "We think aloud to give rise to new ideas, to create the shock," slip Hélène Molinari, Director of communication, recruited in the fall.

Opponents in ambush

His most ardent supporters remain not there, the finding sometimes clumsy and quick to underestimate the adversity. "It should pay attention to issues of power and money", warned one of them. "Opponents lie in ambush, it is enough to listen to some corridor conversations, slips another, at the earliest opportunity, they drop." Symbol of this creeping resistance: Denis Gautier-Sauvagnac, who was elected in March to the Presidency of the Union of industries and professions of metallurgy (UIMM), main component of the Medef. It has of evil to convince when it de jure assist to Laurence Parisot "fair, in a spirit of cooperation." Hence to conclude that

employers is today double-headed, there is a step that little cross. As "dgs" is monitored closely by one of its members, Jean-Martin Folz (PSA Peugeot Citroën), acquired in the cause of Laurence Parisot, and all former Presidents of the Medef and its ancestor, the CNPF, Yvon Gattaz as François Perigot or Jean Gandois, were known in their time of tensions with the UIMM.

In the leading role assumed by its function, the interlocutor of the unions, the President of the Medef on the other hand led a movement. On two occasions in the past year, it invited the Union leaders. There were long time that this type of meetings had not occurred and, for the first time, Bernard Thibault (CGT), François Chérèque (CFDT) and others have been received on the 8th floor of the Medef, in a room with view on the Eiffel Tower, changing rooms reserved for joint negotiation, in the basement. All welcomed the ability to listen to Laurence Parisot, even though contacts have that highlight the substantive disagreements. "The atmosphere is décrispée, we arrive to have frank conversations, recognizes Jean-Claude Mailly, Force ouvrière General Secretary, but in a year, we have not achieved much." "Shared diagnosis" proposed in the five unions in September, in the "social deliberation" launched in June, employers remains to the dialectic. In the last twelve months, only the folder of the unemployment insurance really allowed to test the Parisot method. The negotiation of the new Unedic convention showed how much the leader of the Medef was involved and tenacious. Evidenced by all the stakeholders: it bend its official negotiator, Denis Gautier-Sauvagnac, again. He was ready to accept an increase in employer contributions and, at the time, at night, he has threatened to make its mandate!

The other subject marking of the year, the contract first engagement (CPE), will be given cold sweats to the President of the FIFG. Taken to court by the Government announcements, mid-January, Laurence Parisot made a misstep in communication, while she was six months the Council of his mother, namely "do not drive with mechanical media." She had just to berate "unreadable" in full annual General Assembly of the Organization, the State, when it felt good to issue, a few days later, a convoluted message on PBS. Critics then criticized him to follow public opinion. And, on the ground, patterns, flexibility in labour law plaintiffs, did not understand his words.

Villepin fault

The failure of CEP helping, his troops eventually acknowledge his intuition and his sociological understanding of the events. "You break with stereotypes, you are equipped with a sense of the general interest that certainly puts you above the fray," he said in early June Pierre-Louis Rougny, President of the Medef of Hautes-Alpes, in the receiving gap. The Government, in any case, bitten a big angry, accusing the Medef of disloyalty. Patterns, they refuse to play the scapegoat of a deaf Dominique de Villepin to social dialogue. Hence the theory circulated, that Laurence Parisot could not yet give the best of itself... because the Prime Minister. It is true that Seillière had started its mandate burst, since he had called in 1997 to declare war on the 35 hours of Martine Aubry.

To hear real music, should Laurence Parisot await the presidential election "We will see what it will give in June 2007", points Dominique de Calan, Deputy General delegate of the UIMM. "It will have succeeded if the President of the Republic elected next year take into account his word", confirms Jean-Luc Placet. University of summer, end of August, and then the publication of a white paper to the address of the candidates in the Elysee Palace, in October, will provide it forums to display its community project. It also has the intention to make a tour of France of SMEs in the fall, to the chagrin of the President of the CGPME, Jean-François Roubaud, concerned to see its more trampled beds. If it refuses to enter into a logic of network, Laurence Parisot will need support. Michel Pebereau, Anne Lauvergeon, Jean-Paul Béchat and Gilles Pélisson part: it brought them to the Executive Board of the management movement. But there's also Martin Bouygues, Carlos Ghosn, Jean-Pascal Tricoire, Pinault father and son, Franck Riboud, Jean-Philippe Thierry, Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière, Henri de Castries, Henri Giscard d'Estaing... In short, "the generation that is taking the power", in the words of Anne Méaux, the patron saint of the communication group Image7. Most were at the end of April Medef, when Laurence Parisot was decorated with the Legion of honour. "I spent a great year, but it is not the time to make a balance," she says today. Before adding: "I was elected for five years."