Pierre-René Lemas re-elected Chairman of France Active
On July 4, Pierre-René Lemas was re-elected Chairman of France Active. This senior civil servant has devoted his entire career to the public interest, notably as a regional prefect, General Secretary of the Elysée Palace and Director of the Caisse des Dépôts Group.
In 2018, he was elected to succeed Christian Sautter as president of the France Active association movement. This will now be his 3rd mandate, enabling him to continue developing the work of the network’s 35 regional associations.
Pierre-René Lemas reiterated his ambition to pursue the development of the movement and to contribute to making entrepreneurship a powerful ally in the economic and social development of territories. He will lead reflection on the new 2025/2030 strategic project, with a focus on supporting projects that are ever more socially and environmentally committed.
Pierre-René LEMAS
Chairman of France Active
France Active plays an essential role in the French economic landscape. Our associative movement meets a dual need: to develop socially useful structures in our regions (associations and social enterprises) and to support all entrepreneurs who have difficulty accessing bank credit, due to their personal or geographical situation, by offering them a guarantee that reassures the bank.
We will continue to foster cooperation between socially committed entrepreneurs in the regions. We intend to mobilize even more citizens, entrepreneurs as well as public and private players who share our vision of transforming the economy. In keeping with the vision of our founder, the humanist and resistance fighter Claude Alphandéry, we must bring together and develop all the initiatives that will enable us to meet the social and ecological challenges we face.
Renewed governance for France Active
The re-election of Pierre-René Lemas also went with a renewal of France Active’s governance.
On May 30, the Annual General Meeting approved the appointment of three new directors to the Board of Qualified Personalities: Catherine Husson-Traoré, Managing Director of Novethic and Elisabeth Rivière, lawyer, Claire Thoury, President of Mouvement Associatif, and two new directors to the Board of Economic Partners: Anne-Claire Roux, Managing Director of Fondation Mirova and Yves Pellicier, Chairman of Groupe Maif.
France Active, the movement of committed entrepreneurs
France Active enables every entrepreneur to get involved in a project with a positive impact. Setting up a business and getting involved in your region, giving meaning to your project and transforming society: that’s the challenge facing socially committed entrepreneurs. France Active and its 35 regional associations are there to advise them on their financing projects and give them access to a unique network of economic and social players.
With its 2 finance companies, France Active supports more than 36,440 entrepreneurs. The movement mobilized 485 million euros in 2023. Every day, France Active works to develop a more inclusive and sustainable economy. Last year, businesses supported by France Active created or consolidated more than 67,080 jobs.
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From Europe to the regions : how do socially committed entrepreneurs benefit from European funding?
Europe may seem far away, but it is at the heart of the regions, promoting employment and access to bank credit, and enabling the most vulnerable people to create and develop the most social and environment friendly businesses.
Europe is involved both in the direct financing of entrepreneurs and in strengthening the skills of France Active advisors.
Loan guarantees and investments
France Active mobilizes European funds to finance the projects of the most fragile entrepreneurs and the most socially committed organisations.
For example, Europe, via the European Investment Fund (EIF), provides a loan “counter-guarantee” to cover the risk taken by France Active when it acts as guarantor for the most fragile entrepreneurs. Thus, they do not have to take out a personal guarantee when launching their business. This program is particularly aimed at priority groups (people in very precarious situations, young people or women looking for work or in precarious employment) and priority areas (priority urban districts, rural revitalization zones).
The EIF also provides guarantees for France Active’s investments, enabling entrepreneurs to go even further in their support for priority target groups, the most fragile areas and innovative business projects with a high social impact, while controlling risk.
Experimentation
Europe enables France Active to set up experiments to adjust its financing offer according to the different life phases of structures.1
To facilitate the start-up and takeover phases, France Active recently upgraded its solidarity investment offer, capitalizing in particular on recent experiments. To do this, France Active drew on feedback from a loan deployed to 400 social enterprises to cope with the crisis, and more broadly on its expertise in financing developed over some thirty years.
The IMPACT+ project (supported by the European Commission) is currently being carried out, with the aim of structuring social economy sectors.
Bringing together some twenty federations, networks, academic players and social enterprises, the Franco-Belgian VISES project has developed a social impact measurement approach that takes into account the specific characteristics of social enterprises. This participative, tailor-made, qualitative and quantitative social impact assessment approach questions the link between social needs and a company’s missions, with the aim of going beyond the effectiveness of action.
Since the end of this project, France Active has been working on spreading this approach within its own network.
Non-financial support
ESF+ is a very important source of funding for the France Active network and its work in supporting and financing entrepreneurs and SSE structures. It enables us to support, put in touch and finance a growing number of entrepreneurs who are far from the banking system (jobseekers, recipients of minimum social benefits, young people under 26, women, etc.) and social enterprises.
The France Active association mobilizes the ESF+ for its network professionalization actions2 with the French ministry of labour (Délégation générale à l’emploi et à la formation professionnelle DGEFP). France Active’s regional associations mobilize the ESF+ (or ERDF where applicable) of the Regions for their initiatives in support of entrepreneurial projects, in line with regional operational programs.
The DLA is the French leading organization delivering capacity-building support for the social economy. It works free of charge with socially useful organisations to help them develop their jobs and projects. To support social entrepreneurs in their projects, France Active, as the DLA financement resource center3, produces guides, thematic studies, educational sheets and articles.
Denis DEMENTHON
Managing Director of France Active
In the run-up to the European elections on Sunday June 9, in a tense economic and external context, it’s important to recall what Europe does for France Active, in support of projects by jobseekers, associations and social enterprises.
Europe is an essential partner for France Active, and a real lever of financing for entrepreneurs.
Pierre-René Lemas is a member of a European group of experts on socia economy at a time when Europe is giving it an increasingly important place, with the implementation of the European social economy action plan launched by Nicolas Schmit, European Commissioner for Employment and Social Rights.
Europe will be what we make of it! So let’s continue to show what we’re building with Europe’s support: the development of a more inclusive and sustainable economy at the service of local communities.
1 – It is in this context that France Active has implemented the “ReadinESS” project, dedicated to preparing social enterprises for investment, and the “SOON” project for the most innovative social enterprises in the seed phase – Back
2 – As part of “Nouvel horizon: structuration et professionnalisation du réseau France Active” – Back
3 – Financed by the European Commission – Back
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Mobilizing investment to meet social and ecological challenges
France Active’s “Actifs Solidaires” initiative is designed to give all associations and social economy companies the opportunity to invest.
Much more than a new financial offering, it’s a whole approach that France Active is initiating to mobilize all its partners.
The ambition is to enable all players to consolidate their mission of social utility and to think about the future in response to social and ecological emergencies.
Here’s an update on this initiative and on the first Actifs Solidaires meetings in Paris and the regions.
https://vimeo.com/905266735?share=copy
The logic behind Actifs Solidaires is to develop the access to investment for social and solidarity based companies and non-profit organizations so they can project themselves into the future.
This approach, supported by France Active, mobilizes both its partners committed to its associative project and Social Economy leaders. It demonstrates that finance, by mobilizing the savings of citizens, is able to invest in projects whose primary expected return on investment is about their social utility.
Actifs Solidaires are men and women who, on a day-to-day basis, carry out projects based on job creation, ecology, regional development and social cohesion within a framework of democratic governance.
Actifs Solidaires also provides the financial resources to enable these players to focus on the social and solidarity-based dimension of their projects. Actifs Solidaires mobilizes all the teams at France Active and its partners, who are convinced that they are working together to serve committed entrepreneurs.
Actifs Solidaires is a new way of raising awareness of the challenges of investment among the leaders of the social economy, and of supporting them in the face of ecological, societal and digital transformations.
Finally, Actifs Solidaires is France Active’s ambition to double the number of non-profit organizations and socail economy companies it supports by 2027.
Actifs Solidaires initiative launched across France
A launch in Paris
The first step in this process was a conference held on September 28 at Césure in Paris.
The theme of the evening was “Mobilizing finance to meet social and ecological challenges: the new deal for socially responsible investment”.
How can committed entrepreneurs respond to the profound changes in our modes of production, consumption and way of life? How can solidarity finance provide new answers to their needs?
Solidarity investors, committed entrepreneurs and France Active partners were all present to discuss the issues.
And here’s the best of them.
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New year wishes 2024
Pierre-René LEMAS
Chairman of France Active
The socio-economic context and the growing importance of climate change issues reinforce what connects us: the deep desire to transform our society through economic development that is compatible with the future of generations to come, and oriented to the inclusion of all.
The various crises we are experiencing can only lead us to take even more action. Returning to the fundamentals that drive us is the dearest wish for this new year that I express on behalf of France Active, its teams, employees and volunteers.
And it’s in the values of the Social Economy that we must refound our action. Every day, the thousands of entrepreneurs we support demonstrate that it is possible to reconcile economic development with social commitment. It’s a commitment that is built locally around issues of employment, ecology and social cohesion, within a framework of democratic governance.
Acting for a more social economy means betting on the future. A collective gamble that concerns us all.
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Investing to meet social and ecological challenges
A look back at France Active’s annual general meetings.
A major event in the institutional life of France Active, the general meetings of the association and its two financial guarantee and investment companies were held on May 31 at La Recyclerie in Paris. It was an opportunity for the associative movement to review the past year and look ahead to the years to come. The major decision of the General Meeting was the vote by the directors on the network’s development plan. To meet the social and ecological challenges facing an increasing number of entrepreneurs, France Active aims to double its solidarity investor activity and increase its guarantor activity by 50% by 2027. The general meetings of France Active’s entities on May 31 approved the raising of three new funds: 10 million euros for the national association, 10 million euros for its guarantee company, and 200 million euros for its investment company. The first concrete result of these fund-raisings is the new solidarity investment offer, which will be deployed from next September. It will enable social non-profit organizations and companies to meet unmet investment needs. Whether they are encountering difficulties in sustaining their economic model, or wish to respond to new opportunities, they need specific support for their development, and appropriate financing. France Active’s financing offer provides solutions for entrepreneurs at every stage of their project’s life cycle.
France Active Garantie: securing entrepreneurial paths
At the France Active Garantie General Meeting, Dominique Pillon-Godart and Kevin Fournaux from France Active Picardie spoke about the deployment of the Accès+ program in Picardy. Among other things, they talked about the implementation of an educational strategy for beneficiaries, designed to desecrate the relationship with the bank. The aim is to bring project owners and their bankers closer together, so that they can access the guarantee as early as possible in the life of a project. In Picardie, France Active has proudly achieved its Accès+ objectives, thanks to webinars tailored to the needs of beneficiaries and co-constructed with the national association.
France Active Investissement: investing in social benefits
France Active Investissement’s Annual General Meeting was an opportunity for Yesil Rusconi, Director of France Active Ile-de-France, to present a project supported in close collaboration with ADEME (the French Agency for Ecological Transition). She underlined the strong complementariry of the two networks in their support for the company “Le pav鮓. This company reconciles social and environmental concerns. It produces building materials in panel format using plastic waste on a territorial industrial scale, in line with local needs and available resources. The company, created in 2018, was supported from the beginning by France Active and ADEME and again when it scaled up a year ago. The first plant, based in Aubervilliers, employs people on integration schemes in collaboration with ARES (a social insertion association), and recycles 300 tonnes of waste annually. A second plant is currently being developed in Burgundy, at Chalon-sur-Saône.
France Active: connecting solidarity forces
After sharing the association’s main results and validating the annual accounts, the focus was on “Territoire de solutions“, a collaboration and incubation experiment carried out in the “Seine Eure” region, aimed at helping entrepreneurial solutions emerge or accelerate in response to identified social and environmental challenges.
Benoit Rugel, Director of France Active Normandie, Claire Leclerc, Director of SocialCobizz and Pierre Hourcourigaray, Director of l’Adress came to testify.
They showed how, by acting collectively and involving citizens as well as local players, they have been able to support project leaders wishing to create in the social and solidarity economy. This approach enables them to help them formalize, structure and turn their entrepreneurial ideas into reality. They were then joined by Lynda Lahalle, Social Economy delegate and vice-president of the Normandy region’s economic development commission, who presented the ‘Super incubator’, the territorial social economy hub piloted by the region.
Round table: social challenges, ecological challenges, what kind of citizen ownership of the economy?
- Claire Thoury, President of Mouvement Associatif, gave a sociologist’s view of how citizens, through associations, are taking up this issue.
- Anne-Catherine Husson-Traore, general director of Novethic, the sustainable transformation accelerator of the Caisse des Dépôts Group. As a former journalist, she shares her knowledge of the major transformations of the financial sector and sustainable finance in particular.
- Pierre-René Lemas, president of France Active.
Pierre-René Lemas opens the debate as follows: “This afternoon, we collectively decided to take a step forward. France Active is more than 30 years old, initially founded around social and solidarity values, the association was able to add the ecological dimension. France Active is well aware that social and ecological aspects go hand in hand together.
Today we have defined our five-year horizon: doubling our investment activity and increasing our guarantee activity by 50%. We are equipping ourselves with new resources to this end. Our objective remains the same: to use finance as leverage to develop the Social Economy and enable those who are furthest from employment to create their businesses.”
Claire Thoury continues: “France Active is an activist organization, it uses the codes of traditional classical economics to transform society.
I call on the Social Economy to do the same, to repoliticize itself. We depoliticized it and forgot why we were together. What are our common goals? And what sacrifices are we willing to make to achieve them? The economic dimension has taken too much precedence over the political dimension.
Let us bring together the imperatives of social justice and the imperatives of ecological transition, while integrating an essential pillar that is democracy in order to allow citizens to get involved.”
Anne-Catherine Husson-Traore adds: “Faced with the gigantism of the challenges that await us here and now, re-politicization is obviously necessary.
It is essential to put in place a sustainable economic, social and ecological model because today it is not the case. Faced with global problems, we need global solutions, and finance is one of the solutions. We need to bring social aspiration, citizenship and finance together.”
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The French are ever more vigilant about the impact of their consumption.
Responsible and socially committed consumption
An Odoxa survey for France Active and Réseau Entreprendre®
France Active and Réseau Entreprendre® join forces to boost the socially committed enterprises support in order to help them better meet expectations of the French.
The French has been polled about their consumption habits by Odoxa on behalf of France Active and Réseau Entreprendre®. Do they pay more attention to the impact of their purchases? Does the explosion in prices curb the desire for a responsible consumption? Do they trust companies with ethical commitments?
Although the French are now consumers who are sensitive to the impact of their purchases, many still consider it complicated to consume in a responsible and socially committed way. It’s against this backdrop that France Active and Réseau Entreprendre® have decided to join forces to support more and more committed socially entrepreneurs and help them better meet the expectations of the French.
More than 3 out of 4 French pay attention to the origin of their purchases
Societal and environmental concerns are now at the heart of the shopping baskets of the French: 77% of them say they are careful to ensure that their purchases are made in France or in their region, the criterion most cited ahead of environmental impact (63%) and societal impact (57%), which are nonetheless very important criteria for the population.
Nota bene: the need to consume “locally” is a strong trend in the French consumption evolution (+7 points since 2018).
When it comes to responsible consumption, food is the sector in which the French are most vigilant (69% of the French, and even 81% of those aged 65 and over), far ahead of hygiene and beauty products (33%) and clothing & accessories (24%).
Regarding services, they pay particular attention to the social and environmental impact of their holidays (35% of those aged between 18-24 years old, 43% of those aged between 25-30 years old), ahead of leisure activities (28%) and the bars & restaurants they go to (26%).
While the French declare themselves to be very attentive to the responsible and socially committed side of their purchases, more than 1 in 2 (53%) don’t check how the brands of their favorite products really behave in terms of societal and environmental impact.
Nevertheless, 75% of French people find responsible consumption difficult to achieve
3 out 4 French consider it complicated to consume in a responsible and socially committed way.
2 main reasons:
- The French have strong doubts about the enterprises’ sincerity regarding social commitment (69%). Besides, a large majority of them (82%) trust more the small enterprises to produce responsibly.
- They find the responsible products too expensive. In a period of high inflation, the “price” factor is important, even more so for the socio-economic group classification – (58%, versus 43% for the socio-economic group classification +).
Against this backdrop, almost 63% consider it’s up to the enterprises to lower their prices, although 36% declare themselves ready to pay more for responsible products even if it means to consume less. This intention is strong among young people (47% of those age between 18-24 years old and 49% of those aged between 25-34 years old).
8 out 10 French people would like to see more emphasis placed on responsible and socially committed companies. 81% say that we should raise awareness about social economy.
France Active and Réseau Entreprendre® join forces to develop their mutual support to impact enterprises and solidarity-based enterprises
Given that enterpreneurship should be a lever for the transformation of the society by addressing the social and environmental challenges, France Active and Réseau Entreprendre® build a partnership to increase their support to the entrepreneurs.
Both networks want to answer together to the expectations of French people who identify small enterprises as the first to be able to offer concrete solutions on social and environmental issues.
By joining forces and pooling their numerous points of contact throughout France (135 for Réseau Entreprendre® and 140 for France Active), the two networks are sharing their specific features to increase the impact and social commitment of entrepreneurs by :
- Financing more impact entrepreneurs
- Strengthening their support so that they can:
o help them grow and create jobs locally;
o better meet the expectations of the French, particularly in terms of responsible consumption, as demonstrated by this study.
Download the press release
(in French)
Rémy Bourdier
Chairman of Réseau Entreprendre®
We are a community of socially committed entrepreneurs. As such, we’ve decided to do our part to meet the societal and environmental challenges of a world that’s changing faster and faster. This study, carried out with France Active, is a way of keeping abreast of the situation and ensuring that our local action, through the creation, takeover and development of socially committed businesses in the territories, meet the expectations of the French people.
Pierre-René Lemas
Chairman de France Active
This partnership will enable us to support and finance even more entrepreneurs. The 35 regional associations in our network will be able to advise and guide entrepreneurs around the 5 pillars of commitment that structure our entire approach. These are job creation, strengthening social ties, regional development, ecology, and governance. With Réseau Entreprendre®, we are convinced of the decisive role that these companies can play in transforming our society.
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Europe day : the European Union support for France Active is a lever for action towards a more inclusive and sustainable economy
The European Union support is crucial for the social economy, which is a sector with a high employment and inclusive growth potential. France Active believes that the local and regional levels have an important role to play in the development of the sector, taking into account the specificities and opportunities of each territory.
On Europe Day, France Active would like to thank its European partners for their steady commitment for social economy. Thanks to their support, through the European program for employment and social innovation and the structural funds for instance, France Active has been able to develop initiatives, which aim to support young entrepreneurs, evaluate the impact of social enterprises, and develop the whole ecosystem. Read about their experiences.
Europe Day, they talk about France Active
Brigitte Fellahi-Brognaux
Head of Unit DG EMPL – European Commission
“For many years, the EU has been mobilizing its funds to support France Active in the service social economy. Its dynamic and global approach to support social entreprises as well as the scope and diversity of its methods of action stands out. In the past, the European structural funds, as well as the European program for social innovation, have supported France Active Garantie and initiatives such as Cap’Jeunes, to support young entrepreneurs, as well as VISES, which develops an impact assessment approach adapted to the specificities of social enterprises, and IMPACT +, which aims to develop support for the entire ecosystem.
These programs are in line with the European strategy to support the social economy, a sector that creates jobs and an inclusive and sustainable growth, which yet remains underestimated in many EU Member States.
We share France Active’s conviction that the local and regional levels have an essential role to play in the development of the sector, which is so diverse from one Member State to another and according to the economic sectors covered. The social economy can only develop by considering the particularities and opportunities of each territory, as shown by the work of the regional associations of the France Active network. Moreover, France Active’s commitments in favor of new entrepreneurs or the ecological transition are perfectly in line with the priorities of the European Action Plan for the Social Economy adopted in 2021. Our common goal is to put people and the planet before profit, for a sustainable and fair transition.
All in all, the France Active network sets an example in the financial support ecosystem through its ability to provideds the socially committed enterprises with the financial as well as non-financial support that is best suited to their needs at different stages of a company’s life cycle.
As we seek today to fill the persistent gap between supply and demand of repayable financing for social enterprises in Europe, France Active is a source of inspiration to improve the financial products and programs offered in and by the European Union.”
Antoine Fleuret
Public partnerships and European development officer – France Active
“The European funds have been funding and innovation levers for the France Active network for many years.
The European Social Fund, among others, has enabled to support, to connect and to fund an increased number of entrepreneurs far from the banking system (job seekers, recipients of minimum social benefits, young people under 26, women, etc.) as well as social enterprises. The European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD), for their part, have strengthened financial instruments towards socially committed entrepreneurs. Finally, the European Commission programs have made it possible to implement experimentations to enhance the France Active tools dedicated to specific stages of social enterprises’ lifecyle (seed or scaling up for instance).
For all these reasons, as well as for their role in structuring and professionalizing the France Active network or for their incentive character with other European, national and local funders, European funds are essential. ”
Julien Mollis
Head of the « Faire Mouvement » department – France Active Centre Val de Loire
“Social impact is at the heart of the challenges that the social enterprises are facing. The European Union has funded implementation of the VISES project with the support of the France – Wallonie – Vlanderen INTERREG program. This enables us now to develop a reproducible method of evaluating this impact.
After a launch in 2020 in the Centre-Val de Loire French region, we were able to support 3 groups in this process and thus demonstrate that social enterprises have a very large and essential impact in their ecosystem. We thus enable them to seize their evaluation and enter into a process of continuous improvement of this social impact.”
Emmanuel de Carayon
Co-founder – Fratries
“Our project was made possible thanks to the support of France Active which offered us a European funding that allowed us to launch our first house in Nantes”.
Aurélien and Emmanuel de Carayon launched Fratries, which develops innovative shared housing: modern houses, in the heart of cities, in which young working people, with or without disabilities, live together. The first house was built in Nantes in 2022, two others will open their doors this year in Rennes (35) and Colombes (92) and other projects are underway in other French cities.
This social enterprise was financed by France Active Bretagne via a bank loan guarantee and an investment, both covered by the European Investment Fund (EIF)
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Appeal by Claude Alphandéry – Economy: increasing social cooperation across France
On the occasion of his 100th birthday, Claude Alphandéry, resistance fighter, visionary of the social and solidarity economy and founder of France Active, launches an appeal to accelerate the transformation of our economy so that it becomes fundamentally more social, more inclusive and more sustainable. An appeal that invites citizens, key players in the social economy, local authorities, associations and social entrepreneurs to create spaces for solidarity-based cooperation across all the regions of France.
These one hundred years of life give me the opportunity and the desire to reflect on the war years and the present. In 1940, when I was less than 20 years old, I experienced the unprecedented collapse of my country, a radical defeat, a relentless repression. Recent years have been more insidious, apparently less dramatic. However, they are no less cruelly destructive through the effects of ecological, economic and social crises.
Resistance has twice responded to these disasters. In 1940, in the face of peril, a Resistance, at first disorganised, then gaining in strength with the maquis, contributed to victory and participated in the construction of a social democracy through the CNR programme. Today, resistance has moved to the economic front. We must repair the deleterious effects of a global economy engaged in unbridled competition for unlimited financial profits, whatever the cost to humanity and nature.
In both cases, in the midst of mortal perils, renewal emerges, yesterday those astonishing maquis, and in the present day, the surprising social, solidarity-based, sustainable start-ups.
France Active supports them and accompanies their initiatives; these are multiplying, repairing flagrant ills, but remain all too occasional and too fragmented to create a powerful movement, an economic model, to garner much opinion. Many entrepreneurs themselves, proud of their social and environmental action, sometimes doubt their political impact in the face of multinational billions.
Promising experiences
Nevertheless, there are more examples of more advanced experiences of cooperation; these are often carried out by the entrepreneurs supported by France Active; they in turn wish to impart a broader sense of solidarity to life: give and you will receive. They open up avenues and progress towards more complex and systematic cooperation.
All these experiences of cooperation invite us to progress from very worthy, but isolated and marginal resistance to profound transformations that allow these experiences to develop, accelerate and perpetuate. I see it as a way of inscribing field practices, this essential praxis, into a broader vision, the ethical imagination of a future respecting humanity and nature.This ethic, however, is not easily assumed: it is thwarted by the interplay of contradictory situations, interests and behaviours that blur and darken the vision of the future. Many are reluctant to identify with an ideal that seems distant and that the dominant ideology describes as utopian, as powerless in the face of a reality controlled by finance.
But where does this powerlessness lie? It lies among those who, out of greed for profit, persist in ignoring the disaster that has been foretold, in looking the other way. Conversely, entrepreneurs who strengthen their bonds of solidarity and mutual trust through their collective intelligence and inventiveness are powerful levers of prosperity.
This effort to bring people together is not an isolated approach; indeed, it is encouraged and facilitated by many local and regional authorities, which support numerous solidarity initiatives and include them in a vision of solidarity development for their region; it is also supported by public, private and mixed groups such as the Pacte du Pouvoir de Vivre.
To increase the chances and scope of their cooperation, it seems desirable to encourage and help them to form clubs, embassies of cooperation, in their region; these are places where people get to know each other, exchange ideas and practices, and affirm values and their concept of society and the economy.
Nearly eighty years ago, I created some of these clubs in the maquis, drawing on the history of the Republican clubs. There they learned about democracy. Today, when the progress stemming from Resistance is being challenged, we need these clubs to strengthen our bonds of solidarity and cooperation.
They must be facilitating, supportive entities that help to identify, contact and mobilise all the physical or moral, private or public forces whose mission is to publicise, support, finance and accompany the development of cooperative ventures, to specify their purpose, their projects, their means and to be clear about their difficulties.
In the name of my one hundred years of passion for everything that solidarity means and entails, I therefore launch an appeal to multiply and further these clubs, these places of cooperation. I call for the creation of at least one hundred clubs in the next two years across all of France. I know that I can count on France Active and all stakeholders in the social economy to work together to amplify all these positive cooperative ventures that create social links and make the world of tomorrow a desirable place to be.
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For a Europe of solidarity on territories – the inspirational speech of Claude Alphandéry, the honorary President of France Active
Claude Alphandéry, Honorary President & Founder of France Active, celebrated his 100th birthday on 27th November 2022. The resistance fighter and visionary of social economy took this opportunity to call for new cooperation to accelerate the transformation towards a more social, more inclusive, and more sustainable economy.In this video recorded few months before his birthday as France was holding the presidency of the Council of the European Union, the staunch European shares his view of the social dimension of the European Union. In his opinion, the economical Europe is what made the faster step forward during the past ten years, especially regarding markets opening and competition between member States. He also thinks that the cultural dimension of Europe has spread well as well as the education, thanks to the very useful Erasmus programme. However, little has been made regarding the social dimension of Europe, especially on solidarity and the relationships between people in everyday life as well as in working life.Recovery is a good opportunity to “embed the social utility in the economic activity”. With the support of the European Investment Bank, all the member states should be able to give priority to solidarity-based investments. Moreover, it’s important to give a greater place to the territories to push the Europe of solidarity forward. According to Claude Alphandéry, there are many initiatives throughout Europe that can be shared to inspire stakeholders on the field. This can be seen through the growth of the Third Place, or the development of a global approach to health care in living areas, short circuits, etc.All these approaches must be developed and generalised to all European countries: each territory has the power to make Europe more social and more united.https://vimeo.com/777298012
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