Pierre-René Lemas, President of France Active welcomed the measures in the SSE growth pact, announced on Thursday 29 November by Christophe Itier, France’s High Commissioner for Social and Solidarity Economy and Social Innovation. He praised the willingness to place this economy at the heart of the European and international agenda : SSE is a powerful driver for social cohesion and consciousness which must extend beyond our borders.

Among the measures announced to promote social entrepreneurship, France Active welcomed :

• The development of start-up funds, and support through advice and financing, which France Active has prioritised for years in order to support SSE companies in the start-up or early creation phases.
  With this initiative, the French government is giving us the means to carry out activities in even more favourable conditions.
• Simplification of the accreditation for “social business” (entreprise solidaire d’utilité sociale) status, a measure that will stimulate efforts to create businesses that are more beneficial to society, more democratic in their governance and more balanced in their pay structures.

From a wider perspective, France Active wants to participate fully in preliminary collaboration led by the High Commissioner and will help to implement the SSE growth pact.

As Pierre-René Lemas explained, “For 30 years, France Active has been supporting a growing number of entrepreneurs who want to contribute to the creation of a more sustainable and inclusive economy. Our results speak for themselves: we have supported more than 200,000 entrepreneurs who have maintained or created more than 500,000 jobs.
Our positive impact on employment, wealth creation and regional development is measured in concrete terms: I look forward to the publication, on 12 December, of a major survey on the impact of France Active; a study covering 5771 entrepreneurs supported by us in 2014 and monitored over three years.”