Auto-entrepreneur changes defended

SMALL Businesses Minister Fleur Pellerin has defended the government’s proposals to change the auto-entrepreneur business start-up regime by saying that the moves were intended to get rid of minor problems and were not aimed at the vast majority of participants.

Speaking in Le Figaro, she said the aim was not to “ruin the regime” because auto-entrepreneurs were “part of the entrepreneurial dynamic of our country”.

But, she added, some change was necessary as some people were using it in a way that had not been intended. They had become auto-entrepreneurs “as a way to disguise the fact they were earning a wage” and not to create a business.

In addition, the reforms were “misunderstood, with people not really knowing if they were concerned or not”. She said that the “concern was out of proportion to the number of people who would be affected”.

The government wanted a simplified and fairer landscape for all businesses and had set up an investigation under Socialist MP Laurent Grandguillaume to look at how this could be done.

Although the auto-entrepreneur regime is simple enough for 900,000 to be registered, the government said that there were still people who felt excluded from the act of setting up a business and she wanted to help change this.

One proposal would be for a “school of entrepreneurship” which would allow young and old alike, from poorer areas or elsewhere, well-educated or not, to get started. This would be able to offer some legal and accountancy training and other business techniques, possibly through the internet.

Ms Pellerin said small and medium businesses had problems in growing and, sometimes, in getting finance and the government had set up a series of measures to help businesses to grow and these would be increased in coming months.

The public image of entrepreneurs was changing and 61% of people now had a positive view of them and 87% felt they created jobs. The government had to continue to promote these successes.

Photo:World Economic Forum