Support for businesses is "not an ideological question" according to Antoine Armand

Mr. Armand, who also holds the Finance and Industry portfolio, was speaking to the heads of local U2P businesses gathered for a day of meetings at La Défense.

The U2P is the third representative employers' organization behind the Medef and the CPME.

It was the first public outing of the minister, who had also spoken on Wednesday before the Finance Committee of the National Assembly, with the Minister of the Budget Laurent Saint-Martin.

"Employment, attractiveness, growth, support for businesses, this should not be an ideological question (but) a social, economic, basic question, and this will be my compass", he affirmed, indicating that "the instruction that the Prime Minister gave us is to listen (...) and act for those who are on the ground and who work".

He will personally be the "interlocutor" for small and medium-sized enterprises, as the government does not have a minister delegate for them.

While the president of the organization, Michel Picon, had just asked him to "exclude our categories of companies" from a possible plan for tax increases to reduce the public deficit, which could exceed 6% this year, he wanted to reassure, as he had already done on Wednesday in the Assembly.

"We will not be the government of all-out taxes and I will not be the minister of tax confiscation," he said, recalling that the efforts would focus "first of all essentially on public spending," "and then on those who have the financial means to hold power."

As Mr Picon asked that Parliament resume the discussion on the Simplification Act, interrupted in the Senate by the dissolution, Mr Armand replied that Michel Barnier would "probably speak about it" in his general policy statement on Tuesday.

Having been kept discreet before this speech, Mr. Armand evaded Mr. Picon's wish to review the financing of the social protection system.

He also hoped that any possible reform of apprenticeship funding would not impact small businesses, and a revision of the rules of employer representation in favour of the U2P.

Without answering directly, Mr. Armand nevertheless stressed that small businesses established "throughout the territory" represented between "two thirds and 80%" of the country's businesses.