According to the Bpifrance Le Lab’s semi -annual conjuncture survey, business leaders are more pessimistic for 2023. About 65,000 of them could see their result switch to the red.
By Béatrice Madeline
The 2023 perspectives? Jean-Léry Lecornier, CEO of the Union des Forgerons, an industrial SME located in Essonne, sums them up in a few sentences. “In terms of demand, the economic situation is good: the activity sectors for which we work are well oriented. But our difficulties of the year to come, it is the cost of energy and the rates of Interest. All the challenge is to keep a level of margin sufficient to maintain the productive tool in working order. “
At the other end of France, Christelle Comparin, executive of a framework-construction company in Lot-et-Garonne, adds: “Even if our order books are architecture, I cannot To say that 2023 starts well. Our energy bill has multiplied by three, so we start the year in the red, and we are missing four people to lead the sites. “
After a year 2022 “not so bad”, according to Philippe Mutrcy, director of studies in Bpifrance, small and medium -sized enterprises have entered a zone of turbulence, as confirmed by the last half -yearly conjuncture survey carried out by the public bank investment with 4,590 VSEs and SMEs with less than 250 employees. These provide for a decreased activity compared to 2022, and withdraw from its long period of time. “The strong uncertainty surrounding the economic environment, the difficulties of supply and the energy bill still increasingly explain this withdrawal,” underlines the study.
However, for Alexandra Broussaud, Managing Director of Maison Broussaud, who makes French socks with 68 employees, there is no doubt: the “most delicate subject of the moment” is still and always the energy. And this, despite the multiple devices announced by the Ministry of Economy and Finance to help small businesses.
“Great weariness”
“The State does not do anything, but we have no visibility over the whole year”, deplores M me broussaud. The problem also comes from the complexity of the assistant counters set up by the executive. “No one can identify clearly what will be the level of the aid he can benefit,” deplores Jean-Guilhem Darré, general delegate of the Syndicat des Indépendants, who expresses a “great weariness” on the ground.
Among the companies interviewed by Bpifrance, one in two benefits from a regulated or indexed rate, but 17 % of VSEs-PME are in the blur. Indeed, they have a contract whose renewal is planned in 2023. An element of vulnerability of pre -aging for industrial companies, insofar as more than a third of them is concerned.
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