“As soon as he opens his mouth, it’s to say horrors”: Jean-Luc Mélenchon affirms that the presence of Nicolas Dufourcq at the head of Bpifrance “is incompatible” with that of the rebels in power

Does Bpifrance participate in the “predatory practices” of certain investment funds? In any case, this is the accusation made this Wednesday by Jean-Luc Mélenchon during a press conference dedicated to the presentation of the France Insoumise project to create a “public banking center serving needs”. Citing a parliamentary report published last summer on investment funds, the presidential candidate denounced leveraged buyout operations which consist of financing an acquisition through debt, before repaying the loan using cash flows from the activity of the purchased company.

“This mechanism guarantees investors high rates of return when conditions are favorable, after certain transformations have been implemented in the target company; on the other hand, it exposes the target company, its employees and the entire community to considerable risks when the economy turns around,” indicated the parliamentary report. However, Jean-Luc Mélenchon assures that "this circulation of speculative capital is helped or even supported by public financing, in particular by Bpifrance, (...) because it pays off".

The rebellious leader thus denounced "the irresponsibility of the current public financial center" which "has no control" except "that the market lives". His mandate “therefore has no orientation other than to create value”, he further lamented. “As soon as he opens his mouth, it’s to say horrors” The boss of Bpifrance, Nicolas Dufourcq, assured him in a hearing before a parliamentary commission of inquiry that this vision “absolutely did not correspond to reality”.

On the contrary, Jean-Luc Mélenchon criticizes him for supporting these “predatory” practices of investment funds. “He does as he pleases because no one controls anything, no one can give him orders” and “as soon as he opens his mouth it is to say horrors with which we fundamentally disagree,” said Jean-Luc Mélenchon about Nicolas Dufourcq. And added: “It is clear that his presence at the head of this bank is incompatible with ours at the head of state, not out of personal inconvenience – I don’t know him – but this way of doing things as a public bank does not suit us at all.”

The candidate for the presidential election pleaded for a “powerful and managed” public banking center. “We must first say what it is for and in what direction” it must “advance,” he said, with the rebels placing particular emphasis on the financing of projects meeting social and ecological needs. La France insoumise also proposes the creation of a Livret B more interesting than life insurance to better direct the savings of the French and increase the resources of this public financial center.

Machine-translated from French