Jean Pierre Brard & Yejing Zhu
Born on 7th February 1948, Jean-Pierre Brard has been mayor of Montreuil since March 1984. Elected member of parliament in 1988, he has participated in numerous commissions on economic and international topics. He was a member of the French Communist Party from 1962 to 1996. He is currently a member of the left-wing citizens’ Forum. In the French National Assembly, he belongs to a group of Communist and Republican members of parliament.
Commerce International : How can a mayor support his town’s companies in the international arena?
Jean-Pierre Brard: "It is a question of intervening in countries where political relations carry weight. We don’t take our companies to Germany or even to the United States because the intervention of the town council would not be useful. However, in Algeria and Vietnam where we have strong ties, or after the fall of the USSR in Lithuania, Kazakhstan and Ukraine, things are very different. It has to be said too that the fact that I am a member of parliament makes things easier. I use the French diplomatic network, contacts in the National Assembly, ministers, etc.
Our intervention takes various forms. It might be to accompany companies into the field so they can make contacts with the country’s authorities and economic partners. In 2007, 13 SMEs and SMIs from Montreuil went to Algeria as a result of a contact I had made the previous year in the Algerian government. “It was a great success! An air-conditioning company won a contract for 600,000 euros; another, in electronic components distribution, 3 million euros; a tourism company, 2.5 million euros, etc. So it’s a serious undertaking! In exchange, fifteen Algerian companies visited us at the end of January last year.
Another example is China. We agreed with our Chinese partners that they would let us ride pillion into their country’s business fairs. On our side, we had them invited to the Fair in Algiers. If we hadn’t made representations to the Algerians, the Chinese companies would have had problems obtaining a visa. Similarly, we are taking the Chinese to the MidEst show in Villepinte in the North of Paris.
Sometimes we can also combine political and economic initiatives. Last October, the Franco-Vietnamese conference was held in Montreuil. The subject was political and the local authorities, the regional council, the département and the towns participated. We involved the companies however, since they stood to benefit from meeting Vietnamese public decision-makers. The conference has led to a Nouvelles Frontières mission to Vietnam next Spring.”
C.I. : So Montreuil and China have a good relationship?
J.-P. B. : "We are twinned with the town of Changchun in the province of Jilin. I won’t go into detail but in fact it is thanks to the Russians that Montreuil landed in Changchun. After the fall of the USSR, the Russians struggled on as best they could and we organised a joint operation in that Chinese province. The Russians left and we stayed. But you see, we didn’t go to northeast China, nor even to the south, towards Shanghai, to places where everyone goes. Political relations are really no use at all in the south of China where business is king. The North is completely different because the Chinese are obliged to rebuild their entire industrial base there and organise this change. They are looking for partnerships abroad. The town of Changchun therefore gave us the benefit of its logistics when we visited. This was vital, notably because of the cultural and linguistic differences.
In June 2006, the mayor of Changchun visited us in Montreuil. I introduced him to the head of Ubisoft, which has premises in our town. Ubisoft is already represented in Shanghai, but the two men were able to discuss other opportunities.
Another Montreuil company that has succeeded in China is Quinette et Gallay that makes seats for auditoriums. It makes 70% of its turnover abroad and has won the contract for equipping the Peking Opera House with seats.
But other Montreuil companies have succeeded in Asia - in Vietnam for example, where one of our companies has entirely refurbished the television studios in Hô Chi Minh-Ville.”
C.I. : All the same, given your political history, isn’t this a contradictory position? Not forgetting too, fiscal pressures in Montreuil in terms of business tax which is known to be heavy?
J.-P. B. : “We encouraged the creation of AMIE, the Montreuil Association for Business Initiatives. It is an association that we help a lot but which renders an important service to businesses in Montreuil. It represents real added value and is also a way of reimbursing a small percentage of the business tax in exchange for an efficient service. It’s true we are sometimes criticised for giving money to business. But we don’t give them money, we simply help them find markets. It’s in a spirit of economic development. So the Town’s policy is quite clearly to help companies develop so they can pay their taxes.
AMIE is wonderful because after it was launched by the town council, it was the employers themselves who carried it forward. Relations with the Council were always positive, moreover. So admittedly this may be surprising given our political history, but personally, I am very direct with the entrepreneurs. I say: I will help you develop, but if you treat the employees badly, don’t be surprised to see me outside your door at 7 in the morning distributing tracts. Because we are in an ambivalent situation too.
I’m a Marxist as you know. So in the last analysis, the economic aspect is a determining factor. Marx taught me this. As a municipal administrator, and with the political culture I have, economics is a social lever. So healthy economic development means good social policy and therefore a redistribution of wealth through tax – and business tax is high in the big cities. All this works if the municipality contributes something extra. For us, this is AMIE. As for all that is said about business tax, you can see it’s pure propaganda because employers in Montreuil aren’t idiots. If they’re happy here, it’s not by chance.
Moreover, you can see that we aren’t part of a relocation movement. We are helping businesses to develop to international size so they can gain strength, but in no way so that they can streamline employment here. Quinette and Gallay who designed the seats for the Peking Opera moved its production to China in the beginning. They quickly realised that working conditions in the country were not simply a matter of money. There is also respect for quality, delivery dates, supplies, freight costs, etc. Quinette et Gallay stopped relocation and the seats are now made in Montreuil though they have kept a unit in China.”
C.I. : Do you know any other councils who offer businesses this type of support?
J.-P. B. : “I don’t think other towns do this, although we are trying to share this model. I think there is an ideological block. We are very interventionist and I have no qualms about this. We do what we think we should and our legitimacy comes from universal suffrage.
Our right-wing colleagues are on good, almost affectionate terms, with the employers. They are in an ideological symbiosis. But what do they do? Nothing. We are in a positive dialectic and contradiction. In addition, we are ideologically highly structured. Lastly, our international vision is not just binational. Moreover, we are preparing a meeting in Montreuil in 2011 that will bring together all our foreign partners and their own networks of international partners.
An economic relationship is always up and down. We chose to stabilise these relationship through cooperation on an administrative level, shared experiences and student exchanges. These three factors made for a stable flow. And that is the international policy of the town of Montreuil.”
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