On the search to “recapture the industrial spirit of capitalism”: From patient shareholders to shared governance

摘要

The government, buoyed by the law to recapture the real economy, the Florange act, which establishes the possibility of double voting for patient shareholders (who have held their shares at least two years), has just taken two significant decisions by temporarily increasing its holdings in the capital of Renault and Air France in order to ensure that in a general shareholders meeting the double voting option is not rejected by the qualified majority authorized under the law. The objective spelled out by France’s Minister of the Economy in Le Monde is to help “recapture the industrial spirit of capitalism” by favouring long-term commitments in order to promote investment that will foster solid growth. Under the impulse of the Florange law, that has recently introduced the institute of the double voting for ‘patient’ shareholders (shareholders who have held their company’s shares for at least two years), the government has taken the important decision of increasing temporarily its equity shares into two major French companies: Renault and Air France. [First paragraph]