National Food Industry Association leaves MEDEF

In December 2009, the National Food Industry Association decided to leave the Movement of French Enterprises (MEDEF), which is the main multi-industry employer organisation in France. This decision follows debates as to whether MEDEF is a useful organisation, as it is considered to be too far removed from its member companies’ concerns and to charge too extensive affiliation fees for the services provided.

On 17 December 2009, the National Food Industry Association (Association nationale des industries alimentaires, ANIA) decided by 18 votes to 15 in a secret poll (with 12 votes against and three abstentions) to leave the Movement of French Enterprises (Mouvement des entreprises de France, MEDEF) after several months of internal debates.

Reasons for and impact of ANIA’s move

There are two main reasons for ANIA’s decision to cancel its affiliation to MEDEF:

• it considers the annual affiliation fee of €623,000 to be too high – amounting to 16% of its budget – particularly in light of the fact that ‘for some time already, ANIA has been questioning the relationship between services and fees’;

• it believes that the topics covered and defended by MEDEF ‘are far removed from companies’ concerns related to the crisis’.

According to experts, this departure from MEDEF, which had been forecast by several of ANIA’s members, is not insignificant for several reasons.

ANIA paid fees to MEDEF, amounting to 3% of MEDEF’s budget, thus placing it among the 10 biggest employer organisations in the country following those in the:

• metalworking industry (which makes up 10.1% of MEDEF’s budget);

• banking (8.2%);

• insurance (6.4%);

• construction (5.6%);

• wholesale and retail trade (4.1%).

In 2008, MEDEF’s affiliation fees, which are calculated on the basis of €1.06 per €10,000 of added value in the sector, represented 63% of its resources – namely €23.93 million.

Moreover, ANIA, which represents some 10,500 companies, employing 412,500 people and with a turnover of €163 billion, had been one of the most active employer organisations regarding support for the current MEDEF President, Laurence Parisot, when she was the successful candidate to the presidency of the organisation in 2005 (FR0508102N). ANIA’s decision to leave MEDEF just a few months before the federation’s next presidency elections in the summer of 2010 is also significant, as ANIA’s President, Jean-René Buisson, up until now also chaired MEDEF’s social protection commission.

Reaction of parties involved

Some 200 companies, including the vegetable products groups of Bonduelle and Fleury Michon, did not agree with the decision made by ANIA’s leadership and thus immediately announced their withdrawal of membership from the association.

On the other hand, MEDEF’s President, Ms Parisot, regretted ANIA’s decision, stating that:

• companies should ‘show solidarity, be united and stick together in this period of crisis’;

• it would not give up ‘MEDEF’s societal commitment’.

Regarding MEDEF’s budget in 2010, Ms Parisot proposed that an effort be made to take into account the situation of its member organisations. She stated that the affiliation fees of some organisations would remain stable and others would be reduced by 10%.

Other members of MEDEF, including some members of MEDEF’s ‘new generations’ commission, such as the small business owner Thibault Lanxade, are calling for a debate on the issue, because, in the latter’s view, ‘apart from the issue of fees, the role of MEDEF, its representativeness and its current governance are being questioned’.

The Union of Metallurgy and Mining Industries (Union des industries et métiers de la métallurgie, UI), which is the biggest contributor to MEDEF’s budget, is also said to have asked for a reduction in its fees and is apparently planning to organise in the spring of 2010 a debate on the role of MEDEF.

Benoît Robin, Institute for Economic and Social Research (IRES)