URBAN VIOLENCE: According to Medef figures, more than 200 shops were completely looted, 300 bank branches were destroyed and 250 tobacconists were affected.
While the urban violence, following the death of Nahel by the shooting of a policeman, calms down, the Medef takes out its calculator. The boss of bosses, Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux , said he estimated the damage to businesses caused by the riots at one billion euros, in an interview with Le Parisien published on Monday evening.
“It is too early to give a precise figure but we are at more than a billion euros, not counting the damage to tourism. The videos of the riots, which circulated around the world, degrade the image of France”, declared the leader of Medef, the most influential employers’ union.
Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux confident about compensation
According to his figures, more than 200 businesses were completely looted, 300 bank branches destroyed, 250 tobacconists affected, “with operating methods of absolute violence. Everything was stolen, even cash registers, before setting fire to destroy”.
On the subject of compensation which concerns many companies and in particular the smallest, Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux assures that “the insurers are mobilised to go as quickly as possible, I am quite confident that the businesses concerned will be compensated”. On Saturday, the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire urged insurers to extend reporting deadlines, to quickly compensate victims and to reduce deductibles.
Dismissing a return to “whatever the cost”, these support measures for businesses taken in the face of the health and energy crises, the boss of bosses believes for his part that it is necessary to consider “one-off advances, because some will not be able to exercise their activity for a certain period of time”.