How the bourgeois camouflage the 211 billion aid to companies

For six months, A Senate inquiry commission summoned the CEOs and executives of 33 large groups. Official objective: Understand how much public money these jugns, as well as all companies in France, collect each year, and with what controls (spoiler: almost none), while henceforth it is downright a freezing of social benefits which is envisaged to “clean up” public finances by making the poorest contribute exclusively. Established on the initiative of the Communist group, but chaired by a Republican, the Commission issued its report on July 8. What it reveals is not new, but the figure continues to increase: it reaches 211 billion euros over a year. Faced with this monstrous figure, TV trays chroniclers, employers’ think tanks and right -handed politicians bomb us with arguments all more loose than each other. We list them here and we answer them.

“These are not aid, it’s just that we take them less!”

This is the most hammered argument by employers and its media relays: business aid would not really be money “. Just “smallest charges”, “lightening” torn from an overly greedy state. But this rhetorical sleight of hand does not hold two seconds. Because these “smallest charges”, in particular the exemptions from social contributions, do not cancel the needs they were supposed to cover: they are almost entirely offset by the State. In other words, by the public budget, funded by the tax, in particular that of the popular classes, because the increase in VAT is often mobilized. Take a concrete figure: 75 billion euros in exemptions from employer social contributions each year. This money, social security does not find him under the pillow: it is the state that pays him, in place of employers. So yes, even if it does not appear in the form of large checks stamped “subsidy”, it is indeed money paid without condition and which covers the wages that companies refuse to assume entirely. And during this time, we cut in social minima and weave the screw to the unemployed, conditioning the slightest euro received …

“But 80% of these aids go to public enterprises”

This intoxication comes from Ifrap, a very publicized “think tank”, often presented as “independent”, but funded by companies (by donations… tax exemption). To calculate this figure, it only takes into account 28 billion budgetary aid out of the 211 billion. In reality, large private companies capture the majority of aids, in particular through social security contributions, tax credits, investment aid, Bpifrance systems (public investment bank: it is a public bank that supports the financing and development of businesses mainly by lending them money), etc. The Senate report reveals (to those who did not know) that large French companies receive direct or indirect aid without any compulsory counterpart on employment, ecological transition or maintenance of activity in France. Meanwhile, these same companies continue to distribute record dividends. The promoters of these tax and contributions reduction for employers claim that this creates jobs. It is in small real part, but at an exorbitant cost. The Senate report takes the example of the CICE (employment competitiveness tax credit). For the year 2016 alone, it cost 18 billion euros to public finances for an effect located around 100,000 jobs. This therefore represents 160,000 euros per employment “created” over a year…

“It’s too heterogeneous for us to talk about a single system”

Another diversion tactic: drowning fish in administrative complexity. The Senate’s report highlights this fragmentation as a structural problem. More than 2,200 separate aid devices exist, divided between the State, communities and agencies such as Bpifrance (the report does not take into account European aid). “” There is no transversal legal legal definition of public aid in companies, or their perimeter from an economic point of view. In addition, INSEE does not have ventilated data on all public aid for businesses. Indeed, the accounts of the nation established by INSEE distinguish only two lines, the subsidies on production and investment aid, while data on compulsory samples are very detailed. No dashboard makes it possible to know the amount of public aid granted to large companies, because the transparency obligations in force are fragmented, of limited and little operational scope. », Points the Senate report.

Aids are not evaluated, not followed over time, not conditioned. An opaque system and a dispersion that nourishes the illusion that it would not be a coherent system. Now it is: it is that of capturing public wealth by private interests. While we cut in public services, reform unemployment insurance and tighten the screw to social minima, the State organizes redistribution upside down. The money paid without conditions fuels profits, relocations, and massive layoff plans.

Some examples listed by the commission of inquiry:

· The Auchan group announced Tuesday, November 4, 2024 its intention to carry out a PSE concerning 2,384 of its 54,000 employees employed in France. The group benefited between 2013 and 2023 from 636 million euros in tax aid and 1.3 billion euros in reduction in social security contributions.

· On November 5, 2024, the Michelin group announced the implementation of a PSE concerning 1,254 employees among the 19,000 group employees in France. The group benefited from public aid, in particular 32.4 million social security contributions in 2023 and 40.4 million euros in research tax credit (CIR) in 2024, while paying according to the rapporteur’s calculations around 1.4 billion euros in dividends the same year.

· The ArcelorMittal group announced on April 23, 2025 its intention to set up a PSE which should concern nearly 600 employees among the 15,400 employees in France. The group has paid an average of 200 million euros in dividends each year for ten years worldwide, while it has benefited in 2023 in France from 298 million euros in aid, including 195 million euros due to the price of energy, 41 million euros in reduction in social security contributions and 40 million euros in CIR.

· On April 30, 2025, the Franco-Italian semiconductor manufacturer Stmicroelectronics, which employs 11,500 people in France, announced a voluntary departure plan over three years concerning 1,000 positions, while the company benefited in 2023 from 487 million euros in aid (including 334 million euros in subsidies, 119 million euros in research tax and 34 million contributions of contributions). In 2023, the company paid 212 million euros in dividends.

· On the same day, the LVMH group expressed its intention to remove 1,200 positions, not replacing retirements in particular, in its subsidiary Moët Hennessy which brings together its wine and spirits activities, more than 12 % of its workforce. In 2023, public aid paid to this group reached 275 million euros, while 20 % of the group’s added value in 2024 (37 billion euros) were assigned to dividends in 2024.

The Bricole Senate, we want to resume everything

The senatorial commission is not satisfied with its observations, it advances a series of reforms. Some seek to put a little order in chaos, others finally dare to question the impunity which the large groups benefit from. First, the minimum union minimum: a public and annual table, produced by INSEE by 2027, to finally find out what touches what, how much, and why. A database of public aid ventilated by business size, updated each year.

The report also dares a few kicks in the anthill, such as the prohibition of aid to companies convicted of serious offenses or those which refuse to publish their accounts. Translation: finished to pay public money to boxes convicted of fraud or accounting opacity. This means the level of the current situation. Another idea of the report: require the reimbursement of aid in the event of relocation within two years of their payment. Political, economic and moral evidence. Are you going? You make money (never rest assured these proposals will not be applied).

The icing on the cake: exclude public aid from the calculation of the distributable result to shareholders. Clearly: we no longer directly transform public money into private dividends. To one nuance near: exemption from social contributions would remain distributable, because obviously, siphoning social security remains a sacred tradition in this country.

These proposals go in the right direction, but they do not attack at the bottom of the problem: in France, large companies live under the infusion of public money, and this infusion is not used for employment or investment, but to swell dividends and feed private fortunes. As long as this system remains intact, no technical measure will be enough. You have to go further, and make a simple requirement: delete all public aids that are not strictly vital to the financial survival of companies. And for those who are, impose a real, tangible, collective return. Because why would public money give no power in exchange? When the State invests millions in a company, it must enter the capital. And better yet: a part of these aids could be transformed into social actions (that is to say non-lucrative) held by employees, without dividend, without possible resale, but with voting rights. It would be a resumption of legitimate control by those who produce wealth and who, in addition, pay for the profits of others with their taxes. But that we do not have any illusions: it is not a commission of hidden senators that will change the rules of the game. Their job is to buffer the interests of the capital, not to overthrow it. We will have to tear this power from those who confiscated it.

(cover image: François Daburon / Fondapol / CC by-Sa 2.0)