Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux: "We cannot collectively pay for free care"
As the French employers' association Medef (Medef) proposes a series of "shock" measures to rebalance the cost of health insurance, the movement's honorary president and businessman Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux appeared on the set of "Autrement dit" (Autrement Dit) this Thursday, July 10. He also discussed the impact of artificial intelligence on the workplace.
This text corresponds to a portion of the transcript of the interview above. Click on the video to watch it in full.
Gilles Bornstein: Will artificial intelligence completely change the way businesses operate?
Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux: In any case, it's going to change a number of jobs. It's already started. I believe that just under 40% of employees use an artificial intelligence tool in the office, with or without their employer's consent. It increases productivity. There's also a huge time saving. What's certain is that it's causing the disappearance of professions, or at least parts of professions, like any technical innovation. What's changed in the economy is that the major transformations caused by innovation used to take a generation. And now they take three years. So, our fellow citizens, at least in Western countries, are having a lot of trouble coping with these changes that mean deindustrialization. And that's what creates reflexes of fear, which we can understand. But we can't stop progress.
Camille Girerd: Did you want to cause an electroshock with the measures proposed by MEDEF to rebalance the cost of health insurance ?
We've been trying to contain the health insurance deficit for a very long time. The problem we have in France in particular is that it's getting out of hand. Absenteeism has started to explode post-Covid without any rational reasoning. There are people who cheat. We can say all we want about suffering at work, but ultimately, yes, there is cheating.
Gilles Bornstein: But sometimes people are really sick. With your proposals, for the first three days, a sick person who can't go to work isn't paid, and there are a certain number of medications that they'll have to pay for themselves without being reimbursed. That's still a problem, isn't it?
No, it's not a problem, because we can no longer collectively afford free healthcare. Yes, we all have to contribute a little bit to our health, not on the American model, but on a more reasonable model. Otherwise, what will happen? We won't be able to pay at all.
Click on the video to watch the full interview.
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