Digital Pact: emerging from the crisis, economic recovery, acting for the future.

Confronted with the SARS-CoV2 virus pandemic, and the triple health, economic and social crisis it is generating with unprecedented severity, the digital sector has been profoundly affected. This sector, in all its diversity, irrigates all other sectors, and now conditions the functioning of all of society’s activities and the nation’s resilience. It accounts for over a million jobs and generates around 10% of gross domestic product.

Against this compelling backdrop of crisis, our four associations have decided to cooperate and share their diagnoses in order to prepare for the end of the crisis and put in place the conditions that will enable us to revive the economy and act for the future. They have collectively developed seven structuring themes that need to be addressed as a matter of priority to enable the digital sector to strengthen its capacity to drive the French economy, in the interests of business competitiveness. They put forward concrete proposals for preserving and developing jobs in this strategic sector for the future. These proposals are in line with the Government’s Productive Pact and its post-crisis recovery plan. The Presidents of our four associations have co-signed the fruit of this collective work in a Pacte pour le numérique, which is probably a first in the history of the digital sector.

Cigref, Syntec Numérique, Syntec Conseil and Tech In France solemnly call on the public authorities, representative trade unions and employers’ organizations, and the driving forces of French society, to take up our proposal for a Digital Pact and implement it in the service of a triple ambition: getting out of the crisis, reviving the economy and acting for the future.

PROPOSALS

1. Establish an interministerial authority for the Digital Pact.
2. Extend the digital tax suramortissement scheme to all companies and all digital modernization projects, for investments made over the 2020-2022 period, and create a tax credit for digital transformation.
3. Target public and private investment in digital technology according to criteria of strategic independence, digital sobriety, resilience and protection.
4. Overhaul the rationale behind part-time working to give this crisis mechanism the capacity to preserve activity and jobs at the same time.
5. Support the employment of young graduates, strengthen training and promote gender diversity.
6. Develop strategic digital assets to reduce the European Union’s technological dependence and strengthen confidence in cyberspace.
7. Inventing new forms of work.