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French bosses take to mopeds in ‘anti-gloom’ demo

Around 700 French executives and business chiefs zoomed down Paris' famed Champs Elysees avenue on battered blue mopeds Sunday in a bid to combat a climate of economic gloom.

Published: 12 September 2016 08:26 CEST

French bosses take to mopeds in 'anti-gloom' demo

Photo: AFP

Decked out in matching blue capes and pink helmets, the bosses zipped down the boulevard on their Motobecane mopeds, much beloved in France during the 1970s.

Organisers said the event was an “apolitical” attempt to boost confidence in the French economy — which is expanding, though barely — and show solidarity with employees.

“It's an anti-crisis, anti-gloom message,” organiser Dominique Ravon told AFP. “The goal is for entrepreneurs and their employees to come and show that everything is alright.”

Remi Peraud, a bank manager with the Banque Populaire who took part in the two-wheeled demo, said he wanted to show that “bosses know how to have fun”.

The event was also designed to allow business chiefs to discuss new potential collaborations, organisers said in a statement.

The corporate bikers also included executives from Brazil, Canada and Spain.

The “Meules Bleues” (Blue Moped) event is now in its third year, having started out with 150 bosses taking part in 2014.

France's economy grew 0.7 percent in the first quarter but fell back to zero growth in the second, according to EU statistics agency Eurostat.

But in a glimmer of brighter news, unemployment dropped below 10 percent for the first time since 2012 last quarter, at 9.6 percent.

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How is Denmark's economy handling inflation and rate rises?

The council, led by four university economics professors commonly referred to as “the wise men” or vismænd in Denmark, gave a much rosier picture of Denmark’s economy in its spring report, published on Tuesday, than it did in its autumn report last year.

“We, like many others, are surprised by how employment continues to rise despite inflation and higher interest rates,” the chair or ‘chief wise man’, Carl-Johan Dalgaard, said in a press release.

“A significant drop in energy prices and a very positive development in exports mean that things have gone better than feared, and as it looks now, the slowdown will therefore be more subdued than we estimated in the autumn.”

In the English summary of its report, the council noted that in the autumn, market expectations were that energy prices would remain at a high level, with “a real concern for energy supply shortages in the winter of 2022/23”.

That the slowdown has been more subdued, it continued was largely due to a significant drop in energy prices compared to the levels seen in late summer 2022, and compared to the market expectations for 2023.

The council now expects Denmark’s GDP growth to slow to 1 percent in 2023 rather than for the economy to shrink by 0.2 percent, as it predicted in the autumn.

In 2024, it expects the growth rate to remain the same as in 2003, with another year of 1 percent GDP growth. In its autumn report it expected weaker growth of 0.6 percent in 2024.

What is the outlook for employment?

In the autumn, the expert group estimated that employment in Denmark would decrease by 100,000 people towards the end of the 2023, with employment in 2024 about 1 percent below the estimated structural level.

Now, instead, it expects employment will fall by just 50,000 people by 2025.

What does the expert group’s outlook mean for interest rates and government spending?

Denmark’s finance minister Nikolai Wammen came in for some gentle criticism, with the experts judging that “the 2023 Finance Act, which was adopted in May, should have been tighter”. The current government’s fiscal policy, it concludes “has not contributed to countering domestic inflationary pressures”.

The experts expect inflation to stay above 2 percent in 2023 and 2024 and not to fall below 2 percent until 2025.

If the government decides to follow the council’s advice, the budget in 2024 will have to be at least as tight, if not tighter than that of 2023.

“Fiscal policy in 2024 should not contribute to increasing demand pressure, rather the opposite,” they write.

The council also questioned the evidence justifying abolishing the Great Prayer Day holiday, which Denmark’s government has claimed will permanently increase the labour supply by 8,500 full time workers.

“The council assumes that the abolition of Great Prayer Day will have a short-term positive effect on the labour supply, while there is no evidence of a long-term effect.”

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