The new president of the Confederation of Small and Medium Enterprises (CPME) will be known on Tuesday, after ten years in office for François Asselin, who is leaving his post satisfied with having contributed to raising the place of SMEs in the economic debate.
Three candidates have been in the running since September for a 5-year mandate, with the 122 federations and 112 territorial unions which make up the CPME.
They are, or will be, 60, 50 and 40 years old.
Alain Gargani chairs the CPME Sud Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur and directs the conference organization agency AOS. He wants to make the CPME “stronger and more influential”.
Gaétan de Sainte Marie wishes to promote “the SME reflex”. Vice-president of the CPME du Rhône, he manages the Qantis purchasing center.
The youngest, Amir Reza-Tofighi, supported by numerous federations, is the favorite. Director of Vitalliance (personal assistance, 8,500 employees), which he co-founded at a very young age, he chaired a federation, Fédésap (personal services), an asset that his competitors do not have. He wants to make the CPME “strong in the debate of ideas”.
Verdict Tuesday afternoon.
The CPME is the leading employers' organization in terms of the number of member companies, with a representativeness – based for its part on the number of employees – of 25.54%, between Medef (69.21%) and U2P (companies proximity, 5.24%). Carried out every four years, the new count will be announced in July.
– Frog –
“I never wanted to be the frog who wants to be bigger than the ox,” assures François Asselin, elected in 2015 and then re-elected, “but today it is difficult not to do with the CPME. She is everything fully capable of +holding the pen+ of an agreement”.
With the establishment of a “strategic roadmap” on the battles to be waged, he believes he has made the ex-CGPME, which knew how to “scream”, into an organization capable of “proposing”.
Always available to give the CPME's point of view to the media, he has largely contributed to its visibility.
François Asselin is happy that the social partners are put back “in a position of responsibility” with the negotiation on pensions, and would like to see progress on the themes of capitalization and professional wear and tear.
-For him, the future “enormous” subject will be to ensure social coverage for the 2.4 million self-employed people, while “legally securing” the ordering company.
His ten years at the head of the CPME, which he describes as “exceptional years”, are a chronicle of Macronism.
After some “machines for crushing initiative” encountered at the end of Hollande's five-year term, he welcomes fiscal stability, and the “tipping point” constituted by the labor ordinances of September 2017, breaking down legal barriers but thus promoting hiring, he assures.
He nevertheless admits to having “felt old-fashioned” when faced with the concept of “start-up nation”.
With the Yellow Vest crisis in 2018, “we began to lose direction, SME common sense”, in favor of the preeminence of societal subjects in the debate.
– “Magic moment” –
However, he welcomes “the magic moment”, for hard-pressed entrepreneurs, of the rapid release of aid during Covid.
The one who has compared SME bosses a hundred times to “risk-alls bothered by risk-takers”, always adding with mischief that he “was of course not targeting people”, judges that, in these cases, “France is still great.”
At 60, he is preparing to take over a few years to ensure the transfer of Asselin, the family business of “exceptional carpentry and framing” that he has managed since 1993 in Thouars (Deux-Sèvres).
Recently, she participated in the reconstruction of the Notre-Dame spire. A prestigious business card, agrees the manager, particularly in the United States where Asselin generates 15% of its turnover, making “French-style” joinery for opulent homes.
François Asselin leaves with one regret, the persistent gap between “the goodwill” that SMEs now inspire, and elected officials who “play politics on their backs”. And a hope, that a worrying public debt will move the economy “into the time of pragmatism”.
