The wish to revive French industry is a worthy one. In our Colbertist and Jacobin country, the State’s declared willingness to rely on private actors is rather welcome. But getting actors as different in nature, training and culture as industrialists and representatives of the State and local authorities to work together can quickly turn into a nightmare – or at least into a waste of time and of resources that are always scarce.
The greatest danger is mixing roles
What is the vocation of public actors, and what is their legitimacy? In industrial matters, their only legitimacy is, possibly, that of the boards of companies partly owned by the State. The State’s servants undoubtedly have great expertise. Graduates of the Republic’s best schools, they have sometimes passed through ministerial private offices – thus becoming familiar with the schizophrenia of political power, torn between an administration strong in its permanence and politicians keen to showcase their action, directly or indirectly, through decision-makers and opinion relays, to their peers and to voters. And when they have not benefited from this career accelerator, they have patiently honed their knowledge of the workings of “public authority”.
Some have a perfect command of the mechanisms of public funding, national or European. Others even help shape them. Others still pursue the Holy Grail of knowledge of the oh-so-complex tax schemes. Many are immersed in the meanders of regulations on the environment, labour law, land, banking or markets… which they inherit or devise, sometimes by adding further layers. Some are tasked with promoting French interests abroad, helping to manage the geopolitical environment of energy and mineral imports. Others are responsible for directing public resources towards training, initial or lifelong.
In all these fields, it is legitimate and useful for them to contribute their expertise. That is indeed their public service role, in the service of others (across the Channel, people speak of “civil servants”, without any negative connotation). They are absolutely indispensable to increase the degrees of freedom of business actors, to improve the accessibility of the area where industrial facilities are located, and to develop its attractiveness (infrastructure, housing, training, leisure, living environment…).
But when it comes to applied industrial foresight – that is, strategic direction and operational implementation – what is their legitimacy?
Private decision-makers also come from the Republic’s best schools, and the point here is not to join the sterile war of the buttons between “grandes écoles”, in a country where the school one got into at twenty stays at the top of one’s CV for life… All the more so since many leaders of French companies – or of companies based in France – have also cut their teeth elsewhere, in Europe or on other continents: studying there, working there, developing multiple skills.
The risk of mixing roles is first of all that of a power struggle – a struggle of egos or of representations, within sector committees and plans… to carry the decision, sometimes regardless of its content, since what matters most is to make one’s point of view prevail. To be the best, the strongest, the most “intelligent”, as one was in preparatory class and at school, and throughout one’s life… If necessary by relying, with large amounts of public money, on world-renowned strategy experts – from the private sector, of course – chosen for their reputation, so as to crush any dissenting view, whether merely common sense or sometimes innovative, under this mercenary legitimacy. Power as an obstacle to collaborative work and as a driver of “absurd decisions”: a classic.
In industry, diversity is vital
This risk can also be that of differing cultures: industrial culture, State culture… Many will object that these differences are in fact minimal. Overlapping initial training, moves from the civil service into the private sector, inbreeding among the elites… in the end, people often find themselves “among their own”. From difference, the risk then becomes uniformity. And yet in industry, particularly to ensure creativity and responsiveness, “diversity” – the real kind, not just of faces – is vital.
There are, admittedly, a few talented “go-betweens”, at ease in both cultures, State and industrial. But they are rarely familiar with the specific issues of the SMEs that make up the fabric of a region and give an industrial or service offer its vital agility. Do the precedents of competitiveness clusters and industry sectors reassure us about the willingness and ability of the “big players” to work in healthy synergy with the multitude of small actors – particularly in innovative sectors – other than as providers of good ideas, or as subcontractors who will be the first victims of bad decisions?
Collaborative work between structures and between individuals – because both levels, inter-organisational and interpersonal, are concerned – across the public and private worlds in all their diversity, is a complex but vital challenge.
Its success must rest on a few proven principles, first among them a proper division of roles: to the private sector the “core business”, to the public sector the environment, also in all its diversity. This is not about pre-eminence or power, but about the legitimacy of skills and experience. To each their own job – and there is enough for everyone, given the state of our industry!
This division of roles will only be achieved, and effective, if it is also nourished by mutual respect, based on recognition of everyone’s skills, small and large, public and private.
An individual and collective process to be built step by step – but not too slowly all the same, given the urgency.
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