This time, we're there. The wall of bankruptcies eventually rises. After years marked by a historically low number of failures linked to the exceptional measures put in place by the State during repeated confinements to support businesses, the catch-up has started well and should continue this year. The latest delivery of statistics from the Banque de France shows 65,764 companies entering into receivership or liquidation during the year 2024. This is both more than last year (56,313) and above all more than the average before the pandemic (59,342 in the years 2010 to 2019).
The construction sector, whose employers' organizations have continued to warn of the seriousness of their situation in recent months, is, along with commerce, among the sectors most affected: 14,743 companies are affected by these procedures, in an increase of 25% compared to last year. That said, it is a sector which traditionally records more failures than its weight in the economy, and the increase compared to the 2010 decade is only 0.4%. Real estate, financial and insurance activities as well as transport and warehousing showed the most significant growth, around 30% more than last year and significantly above their average for the previous decade. Furthermore, all sectors combined, failing companies are larger than before the pandemic: 65 large and mid-sized companies are affected by judicial recovery or liquidation, which represents a record increase of 97% compared to the average 2010-2019.
Unions worried
If all the jobs concerned are not necessarily destroyed, since not all companies in receivership go out of business, the fact remains that many of them are in danger. How much ? More than 192,300 jobs were threatened in 2024 by collective proceedings, notes the National Council of Judicial Administrators and Judicial Agents. This is less than the previous year (213,000), marked in particular by the difficulties of Casino and Orpea. Other sources, such as the BPCE banking group, put forward higher estimates, at 250,000 jobs.
The subject particularly worries unions and employers, who, in the wake of the censorship of Michel Barnier's government in December, agreed – an unprecedented move – to a joint declaration uniting seven out of the eight representative organizations at the national level. “Already in France, investment projects are frozen, hiring intentions are revised, failures of companies of all sizes are increasing to the point of reaching a level unknown for a long time”we read there. The signatories (CFDT, FO, CFE-CGC and CFTC on the employee side, Medef, CPME and U2P on the employer side) alerted “the consequences of prolonged instability”. Only the CGT was an exception, its general secretary, Sophie Binet, explaining at the start of the week on France Info that “in this forum, one thing was missing, namely stability for what to do: if it is to have a stable government which continues its policy of social regression, it is without us”.
-“Different scenarios”
If the observation appears largely shared, the conclusions differ. On the employers' side, the emphasis is placed on the need to reduce public spending, to which “we are drugged”, recently diagnosed Patrick Martin, the president of Medef, according to whom “we are at a level of social spending which is becoming unbearable”. However, in his eyes, there is no question of touching the approximately 160 billion euros in direct and indirect aid from which businesses benefit, including almost 80 billion euros in exemptions from social contributions compensated by the State: it would be necessary to on the contrary, argue the employers' representatives, continue the policy of reducing the “cost of labor”.
On the union side, we take care, at the CFDT for example, to distinguish between situations. “There are very different scenariosexplained Marylise Léon in a recent interview with Liberation, dcompanies that have not anticipated major changes, such as mass distribution, which requires support for employees in retraining; sectors like the automobile industry, which are being hit hard by ecological transformation, where companies, particularly manufacturers, need to be held accountable to subcontractors; and then companies that restructure because they want to optimize their results.” More “in all these cases, believes the general secretary of the CFDTwe must strengthen social dialogue and the weight of staff representatives. The wall of failures should definitely not see its height drop this year.
