Laurence Parisot. The boss of bosses is a woman
The appointment in July 2005 of a woman, Laurence Parisot, to head the Medef, le Mouvement des Entreprises de France, the country’s leading employers’ association, was a minor revolution.
Her election is the "symbol of a modernity and boldness that was not necessarily expected of France’s employers", declared her predecessor, Ernest-Antoine Seillière; and Laurence Parisot is already flaunting her difference by her style: T-shirt and trousers, short hair, no make-up, we are a long way from the traditional "suit, tie and cigar" associated with the boss. But it is above all in her attitude that she is breaking new ground. "I define myself as a liberal," she goes so far as to declare, when "this word has become a swearword in France", as one boss has whispered.
But Laurence Parisot is setting out "to prove that liberal does not mean antisocial" and to do it by "explaining the economy to the French". Her credo: "When business wins, everyone wins", and she is demanding greater flexibility in the labour market and tax cuts. "Life, health, love are insecure, why should work not be subject to the same law?", she ventures to ask. Her formula? "What’s good is what works."
Laurence Parisot in
discussion with one of the
main trade union
representatives,
François Chérèque,
secretary general
of the CFDT.
Versatility and pragmatism
Her versatility is her principal asset: industry and the service sector, the provinces and Paris, intellectual and down-to-earth, an heiress and a fighter. Laurence Parisot, who grew up in the East of France, graduated in law and from Sciences Po in Paris. She inherited Optimum, the firm she runs - France’s leading maker of cupboard doors - from her grandfather, and the polling organisations in which she forged her career - Louis Harris and the IFOP, of which she has been CEO since 2000 - taught her to analyse reality.
The problems that await her are sensitive issues: the Medef, which includes 750,000 business managers, has to reckon with the trade unions on the subjects of reform of the Labour Laws, unemployment insurance, pensions, purchasing power, etc., but Laurence Parisot has chosen the path of conciliation. Two months after her appointment, she initiated meetings with trade union leaders, proposing "that they draw up a diagnosis of the situation together".
Teaching ability, dialogue, pragmatism: Laurence Parisot seems to have chosen these "feminine" virtues in order to help boost the French economy. Oh, and she has also had flowers placed in the entrance of Medef’s headquarters ...
For further information: www.medef.fr
Nadia Khouri-Dagher,
journalist
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