Lhe election this November 5 in the United States will decide not only the name of the next tenant of the White House, but also the majority in the Senate and the House of Representatives.
The campaign which is ending was punctuated by Donald Trump's overreach in openly racist and misogynistic speeches and by more or less muted calls for political violence to intimidate his adversaries, raising the specter of the attack on the Capitol on 6 January 2020 by supporters of the former president. The campaign was also marked by the growing acceptance of this type of speech, now considered and treated as “normal” by a significant part of the media and the American population.
The attitude of the business community reflects this normalization. If a good part of the economic elite had bet on Hillary Clinton rather than Donald Trump in 2016, they were able to adapt very well to the policy implemented by the latter, particularly in terms of lower taxes. Conversely, the measures taken by the Joe Biden administration to try to somewhat rebalance the sharing of wealth in the country, and its more aggressive position in the fight against monopolies in digital technology and beyond, n were not to their taste.
Financing radical deregulation projects
If all the traditional supporters of the Democratic Party have not gone so far as to openly choose Trump, they have largely turned away from Joe Biden, and his replacement by Kamala Harris has only partially changed the situation. The latter's supporters, such as billionaire Mark Cuban, are pushing for her to return to a more centrist and “pro-business” positioning, with the risk of alienating part of the left-wing Democratic electorate as had been the case. the case in 2016. A good part of the economic establishment seems to adopt a position of caution and expectation, putting the two candidates on the same level. As evidenced by the decision of Jeff Bezos, former boss of Amazon, to prevent the Washington Postwhich he now owns, to officially support the candidacy of Kamala Harris, as its editorial staff was preparing to do.
This lukewarmness only gives greater relief to the activism of certain supporters of Donald Trump, starting with Elon Musk, the boss of Tesla, SpaceX and X (formerly Twitter). In addition to openly campaigning in person, the billionaire funds Donald Trump's teams and groups leading disinformation campaigns in key voting states. If the Republican candidate succeeds, Musk must chair a commission tasked with making the federal government more “efficient” – in other words, making clear cuts to departments and agencies and the regulations they are responsible for implementing. . He would thus have under his control public authorities on which the fortunes of his companies depend (like NASA for Space X) and others with whom he is currently in conflict. [1]. This radical deregulation project is in line with that formulated in the “Project 2025” of the Heritage Foundation, a member of the Atlas network, which is intended to be the political program of a future Trump administration.
Sanofi pro-Republicans
As the Observatory of Multinationals had done during previous elections, we looked at the political financing of the subsidiaries of French groups in the United States, based on data compiled by OpenSecrets [2]. The sums of the French groups at stake are obviously rather modest compared to those which have been released by American giants like ExxonMobil or Alphabet, the parent company of Google. The fact remains that, even focusing on the money passing through the ” political action committees » (PACs), French companies have paid money to candidates for the Senate or the House of Representatives, often favoring the Republican camp.
In many cases, this funding was even intended for politicians from the most extremist faction of the Republican Party, who are still contesting the legitimacy of the 2020 election today and have refused to officially endorse the results. While everything suggests that Donald Trump and his supporters will contest their defeat if Kamala Harris is declared the winner after November 5, these candidates could be brought to play a key role in the fate of American democracy in the coming weeks.
Who are the French groups concerned? The one who tops the list should not be a surprise as it is now, at least in the minds of its managers, more American than French: the pharmaceutical giant Sanofi. His PAC has declared $409,000 in campaign contributions to date, the majority to Republicans. For example, he donated $30,000 to each of the Republican national committees for the Senate and Congress, and financed the campaigns of multiple candidates who refused to recognize the results of the 2020 elections, such as John Joyce Lloyd Smucker, Guy Reschenthaler and Mike Kelly from Pennsylvania, Buddy Carter from Georgia, Jason Smith from Missouri, Richard Hudson and Greg Murphy from North Carolina. A rather Trumpist political orientation which can perhaps be explained by the desire displayed by Joe Biden and his administration to limit the price of medicines in the country.
What do the subsidiaries of French public companies play?
Another category of French companies, more unexpected, also stands out for its political financing: public capital groups such as Airbus, EDF, Engie and Thales. The first, controlled jointly by France, Germany and Spain, displays 276,000 dollars in contributions, the vast majority in favor of Republicans. According to the organization Donations and Democracy, the Airbus US PAC supported no fewer than 28 Republican candidates who voted against approving the results of the 2020 election. Of the six candidates who each benefited from the maximum sum paid ($10,000), five refused to officially recognize Donald Trump's defeat.
The political action commitee of EDF in the United States, where the group is mainly present in the renewable energy sector, paid $151,800 in contributions, 58% for Democratic candidates. However, among the beneficiaries of this generosity from the public company we find Republicans aligned with Trumpist electoral denial such as Bob Good (Kansas) or Ben Cline (Virginia), as well as a payment of $10,000 to the Republican National Committee for the Senate.
The observation is the same at Thales – which displays $54,500 in political financing, equally between Republicans and Democrats, but with beneficiaries like John Carter (Texas), Frank Lucas (Oklahoma), Guy Reschenthaler (Pennsylvania) or Scott Franklin ( Florida) – or Engie, with $27,000 in funding whose beneficiaries include Jason Smith (Missouri) – who notably voted against financial and military aid to Ukraine – or Jeff Duncan (South Carolina), opposed to the law to abortion, hostile to the fight against discrimination at school or to measures to limit global warming. Last group concerned: Orano (formerly Areva), whose PAC declares only $2,500 in donations, to Chuck Fleischmann of Tennessee, also supported by EDF, who also voted against approving the result of the 2020 elections.
Outside the public sphere, another French group stands out: Pernod-Ricard devotes nearly $63,000 in funding via its PAC, 78% for Republicans, several of whom refused to recognize the result of the 2020 elections: Carol Miller ( West Virginia), Jodey Arrington (Texas), Tom Cole (Oklahoma), Garret Graves (Louisiana). Ditto to a certain extent for Air Liquide, whose PAC declares $21,000 in funding, 83% for Republicans. Among the other CAC40 groups, only ArcelorMittal and TotalEnergies seem to have set up a PAC, for negligible amounts. [3].
A reflection of the preferences of business leaders?
When they are singled out for this type of political contribution, the companies concerned generally defend themselves by arguing that it is not a question of direct financing on their part, but of donations from their employees passing through a structure which is certainly linked to the company, but independent of it. In reality, the constitution of a “ political action committee » is decided by the company, which has the power to designate the people who will decide who the donations will be intended for. It is generally the managers of the company who make the financial contributions. The two main donors to EDF's PAC are Tristan Grimbert, CEO of the American subsidiary, and Jim Peters, the vice-president in charge of project financing. Its treasurer is Virinder Singh, head of legislative and regulatory affairs – the company's chief lobbyist in Washington.
Conversely, direct contributions are just one way for a company or businessman to influence electoral campaigns. PACs indeed have the disadvantage of being subject to transparency obligations. It is possible to get around this obstacle by channeling money through more opaque structures and directing the majority of funds to entities like “Super PACs”. The latter, which intervene in campaigns, but without formal link with a candidate, are often used for denigration or disinformation campaigns. They are one of the privileged instruments of influence of billionaires in American politics. Elon Musk actually created his own this year. Another way for companies to remain discreet about their support is to channel funding through sectoral business associations, such as PhRMA which brings together all the pharmaceutical multinationals, including obviously Sanofi. PhRMA has reported $550,000 in financial contributions to the 2024 campaign at this point and has also funded the Heritage Foundation, the ultraconservative organization behind “Project 2025.”
Does the funding granted by the PACs of French groups like Sanofi, Airbus or EDF to extremist Republican candidates constitute approval of all their positions on climate, sexual rights, migration or the use of political violence? In most cases, no. The choice of beneficiaries above all reflects a good dose of opportunism and well-understood interests. If Airbus is so generous with the candidates in Alabama and Mississippi, two states dominated by Republicans, this is obviously due to the location of its only factory in the country. But these contributions also precisely show that for manufacturers, when it comes to continuing to do business, the boundary between what is acceptable and what is not does not exist.
Olivier Petitjean (Observatory of multinationals)
Photo from one: Donald Trump and Kamala Harris on the ABC News channel during their debate on September 11, 2024 / © Romain Costaseca (Hans Lucas)
