France has won the battle for access to entrepreneurship. It has not yet won that of duration.
France has never had so many candidates for individual entrepreneurship. She has never seen such a large number leave so quickly. One thing, however, seems to change everything: to be accompanied, or not to be.
Each year in France, the micro-enterprise scheme attracts more candidates: today there are nearly 759,000 joining it annually, almost twice as many as seven years ago. The figure is cause for celebration: it is a sign that the desire to work for oneself has never been so strong, and of a regime which has actually kept its initial promise, that of making business creation accessible to anyone who wants it. But a study of theINSEE reminds us of a more sober reality: among micro-entrepreneurs who have actually started their activity, only 39% are still active five years later. By including those who have never taken action, this rate drops to 28%. In other words, out of ten people who take the plunge today, a little more than seven will have stopped their activity before their fifth birthday.
An easy diet to join, difficult to stick to
This figure becomes even more striking when compared to other statuses. Still according to INSEE, the five-year survival rate reaches 63% for sole proprietorships classics, and 71% for companies. Self-employment, thought to be the broadest gateway to entrepreneurship, is also the one that closes the fastest behind those who have crossed it. This is not an isolated statistical coincidence: the gap remains regardless of the sector of activity, the age of the creator or their prior experience.
Should we see in this the failure of the regime itself? It would be too quick a reading, and above all unfair. Micro-entrepreneurship has allowed hundreds of thousands of French people to test an activity, to reinvent themselves professionally or to generate additional income without ever having to mobilize the resources of a structure. legal classic. The problem is not the front door. This is what happens, or rather what doesn’t happen, once you cross it.
The lightning format, and its downside
Starting a micro-business has never been more accessible. But this ease has a downside: it has eliminated the moment when someone asks “Are you sure of your choice? Have you thought about this, anticipated that?”
However, decisions taken in just a few clicks are not trivial. The tax regime adopted, the choice or not of the final payment, the use of the ACRE, the thresholds of turnover not to be exceeded: each of these checked boxes has consequences that extend over several years. A form, no matter how well designed, never rephrases a poorly understood question. He validates a choice but does not explain it.
This thread of unexplained decisions does not end at creation. It continues with each quarterly declaration: how much to set aside for social contributionshow to identify that we are approaching a threshold, how to anticipate regularization. The average turnover of self-employed people still active five years after their creation amounts to 20,000 euros per year according to INSEE, but the resulting real income, once contributions and charges have been deducted, only represents around half of this sum, or barely more than half of a minimum wage net. In these conditions, the slightest administrative misunderstanding or the slightest unforeseen event can be enough to overturn an activity which, on paper, nevertheless seemed viable.
What support really changes
INSEE measured the effect of support on the sustainability of micro-enterprises : receiving support in terms of advice, information or logistical support increases by 7 points the probability of still being active five years after creation. Benefiting from assistance dedicated to business creators or buyers increases it by 6 points. These are differences that are found almost identically whatever the profile of the creator.
INSEE takes care to point out that the cause and effect link is not formally established: the creators who receive support are perhaps also, by construction, the best prepared. But whether the causality is total or partial, the correlation remains strong, and they all point in the same direction: those who had someone to guide them last longer than those who were left to make their choices alone.
Support designed as a one-off referral
This is where the problem lies. Support exists, but it is almost systematically thought of as a one-off service, mobilized at the precise moment of creation, then abandoned. However, INSEE data show that the difficulties are not concentrated on this single moment: they spread over the entire lifespan of the activity, from the first declaration of turnover until a possible cessation, which deserves to be anticipated with as much care as a creation, if only to avoid the administrative consequences of a poorly managed abandonment.
This observation goes far beyond the sole case of micro-enterprises. It affects more generally the way in which we evaluate policies supporting entrepreneurship in France: we readily communicate on the number of creations, more rarely on the number of successful trajectories. We celebrate the input flow, we ignore the output rate.
Measure the trajectory, not just the start
A five-year sustainability indicator, which would take into account the role of support rather than just the number of creations, would undoubtedly give a fairer image of the real effectiveness of entrepreneurship support systems. This could also invite us to rethink support as a service that is deployed over time, rather than as a formality that we check off once upon registration.
France has resolved the question of access to individual entrepreneurship, which has never been easier to join. It remains to resolve that of duration, which does not come into play at the moment when you create your activity, but in the months and years that follow. This is perhaps where we find the next stage of a policy to support entrepreneurship that would really bear fruit.
