Corporate France Braces For Political Turmoil

France's business elite is anxious about volatile politics, inexperienced policymakers, street protests, and a possible wave of bankruptcies in the coming months, executives meeting in Provence said ahead of Sunday's parliamentary election, Leigh Thomas and Helen Reid reported for Reuters.

Far-right and left-wing parties want to roll back some of Macron's reforms, ranging from raising the retirement age to scrapping a wealth tax on financial assets. I Photo: Marine Le Pe Facebook

Corporate leaders gathered on Friday and Saturday in the southern city of Aix-en-Provence for France's annual answer to Davos have been among the main beneficiaries of President Emmanuel Macron's pro-business reforms since he was first elected in 2017.

Far-right and left-wing parties want to roll back some of Macron's reforms, ranging from raising the retirement age to scrapping a wealth tax on financial assets.

Voters are set to derail his drive to ease taxes and other constraints on business when -- as it is widely expected -- they hand Macron's party a decisive defeat in an election that polls suggest will give the far-right the most seats in parliament.

"We are very concerned about what's going to happen," Ross McInnes, chairman of aerospace company Safran, told Reuters. "Whatever the political configuration that will come out of Sunday's vote, we are probably at the end of a reform cycle that started 10 years ago."