At the end of a four-month campaign, Patrick Martin was elected head of Medef, the first French employers’ organization, on Thursday July 6. Deputy President and as such number two of the organization, Patrick Martin, 63, obtained 73.18% of the votes against 26.82% for his competitor Dominique Carlac’h.

The participation rate rose to 91.34% among the 1,120 voters representing the professional federations and the territories of the organization, many of whom had given their support to Patrick Martin. Elected for a single five-year term, the new president of Medef, who will succeed Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux on July 17, received a long standing ovation. Several hundred voters were present at Hangar Y in Meudon (Hauts-de-Seine), south-west of Paris, to watch the announcement of the results.

Aged 63, Patrick Martin runs the family distribution business for professionals (B to B) Martin Belaysoud, which has nearly 3,000 employees. “I would like to express all my affection to Dominique Carlac’h,” Mr. Martin said after the announcement of the result, adding that “the story is not over” between them. Patrick Martin is in favor of green growth, the continuation of the reduction in production taxes and wishes to emphasize training and employability, in particular of seniors, while strengthening the representation of Medef with European authorities.

To date, only one woman president of Medef

In the position of challenger, Dominique Carlac’h, vice-president and spokesperson for the Medef, sought during the campaign to print an image of renewal, while rallying to her cause the other candidates who had launched themselves in March in the presidential race, Pierre Brajeux, Guillaume Cairou and Olivier Klotz. She was also supported by some big bosses including Jean-Dominique Senard of Renault or Christel Heydemann of Orange.

At 54, she wanted to “build a Medef of our time” that would make more room for start-ups. In her program, she proposed to “transform the freedom to do business into a universal right to do business” by putting in place “policies for the care of children and dependent persons” to allow women in particular to devote themselves fully to their activity. entrepreneurial.

To date, only one woman has acceded to the presidency of the first French employers’ organization. It was Laurence Parisot who served two terms from 2005 to 2013. Patrick Martin like Dominique Carlac’h had already competed for the presidency of Medef in 2018, before both withdrawing in favor of M Roux from Bézieux. The Medef brings together some 190,000 companies employing a total of more than 10 million employees.