The crisis we are going through could, paradoxically, be an opportunity to restore the image of companies, and to re-demonstrate the indispensable role they play, from SMEs to CAC 40 companies.

A period of transition is always uncomfortable, we know where we have come from without knowing very well where we are going, what we are losing without knowing what we are gaining. We are in the middle of a ford where the water is cold and sometimes gets into our boots, which struggle to find reliable and firm support on slippery paving stones. We have left the already distant shore of the years of growth, of available resources, of the bipolar world, of the rich welfare states... to try to reach the shore of a new paradigm, for the time being out of sight, barely glimpsed at times like a mirage in the mist above the swell of the economic situation. We are trying to find the course of this new shore, so that one day we can reach it and discover it, like a new America.

To find this course, to discover this land, we must undoubtedly wish for a great Admiral Schumpeter to guide us through this great crossing, accepting the idea that tomorrow will not be like yesterday, that what is disappearing today can make way for new models. In this great change, in this search for perspectives that politics in the broad sense is struggling to find and provide, the sextant is perhaps to be found in companies and in what are called the "social partners".

For several years now, and particularly in France, companies and business leaders have not had a good image with public opinion and political decision-makers. And yet, as the Prime Minister "acknowledged" last weekend, jobs and growth will come from companies, from their dynamism, from their famous competitiveness, from their capacity to innovate, to motivate the troops, to conquer, to excel. This period of crisis is, paradoxically no doubt, an opportunity to restore the image of companies and to reaffirm, if necessary (in fact, it is necessary), the obviously indispensable and decisive role that they play, from very small businesses to the CAC 40. Changes, transitions and the search for new solutions are commonplace in companies, an ability that is often a condition for survival. This ability must be put to good use for the benefit of the collective and the other stakeholders. In this period of crisis, the company and its representatives can surprise in a positive way, assert their responsibility, and present a proactive and constructive discourse, open to discussion, exchange and even concessions in the face of trade union representations, some of which remain stuck on dogmatic positions.

The company can show that it can be a solution to get out of the crisis, in the face of a political power that is certainly willing but lacks the means, and sometimes the ideas, having often already tested everything, tried everything. On Monday evening, on the set of Mots Croisés, Valérie Pécresse said she was very attentive to the exchange between Laurence Parisot and Bernard Thibault, convinced that part of the solution would come from there. She was right. Politics does not have a monopoly on finding a way out of the crisis, nor does anyone else, but this capacity to invent tomorrow will come from the collective, within which the economic actor is a determining factor. For a new year 1498! Hurry up!