Participative democracy is not the monopoly of the Left. MEDEF, the French employers’ union, has just published a 150 page book which is the fruit of direct consultation with 50,000 managing directors. The book, “Le besoin d’air” (The Need for Air), is a non-partisan manifesto on how to breathe life back into French business and thus, argues Laurence Parisot, president of MEDEF, back into France. It is very rare for French employers to take any collective part in a presidential election campaign or indeed take any concerted action at all, and reflects the new direction being given to le patronat by Madame Parisot. In the past, MEDEF has been dominated, controlled by its (male) leader. Parisot, who became the first woman president of the union in July 2005, clearly believes in consultation and participative decision-making (before her present job she was managing director of IFOP, the French Institute of Public Opinion, so she has the track-record).

French companies and particularly small businesses can do very well, but they are handicapped not only by high tax, an excessively complex Code du Travail (at the employers’ AGM two years ago Laurence Parisot said “The freedom to set up business stops where the Code du Travail begins”) and what she calls “hyper-regulation”, but almost more fundamentally French entrepreneurs are crippled by being studiously ignored, if not spat upon, by much of French society. Nobody talks up French business. It would be electoral death for any candidate, even Nicolas Sarkozy, to praise the bosses. Why do so few take pride in something the French do well? It is perverse: the reason French companies do well is, generally speaking, because of the quality of conception and realisation, the reason they are not competitive is because of their high charges and the hyper-regulation. Yet the current chatter praises the latter and denigrates the job and income-creating employers. Laurence Parisot wants to switch that round that round: “Let us go out and meet people,” she told the 6,000 bosses at MEDEF’s annual general meeting (that’s probably a bigger crowd than Sarkozy got at his much-hyped coronation on January 14th), “show yourselves. How can we hope to be known and have a good image if we stay in the shadows, in our offices and workshops? Go out and talk about your successes, explain how you got where you are. Tell the French about our ideas and our methods.”

To me that is the most positive aspect of these election campaigns: the much-publicized change, break or rupture advocated by three of the four main candidates boils down to involving people, giving them information and trusting them with the intelligence to use it. If this movement continues, it can only result in a richer debate, and a higher turn-out on polling day. Many bosses at yesterday’s AGM were saying that this year, these elections, are make-or-break for French business. If that’s true, then they have to come out to people, via blogs or participative debates, why not, to explain why.