Jim Armitage: Despite Emmanuel Macron’s claims, France is still En Panne

Pull the other one, Monsieur Macron. For all the French president’s dainty wooing of the City’s bankers at the Elysée Palace — the champagne receptions promising France was no longer a socialist, anti-business throwback — barely any UK-based firms have upped sticks for Paris.

Having been one of thousands stranded on the Continent at the weekend thanks to French air traffic control strikes, I can testify why.

France remains mired in strike-prone, bolshy unionism which no president, however young and handsome, can curb.

Its air traffic controllers have been on strike nine times in the past 12 weeks. This weekend’s disruption has not yet been tallied, but their strikes since March 21 forced 2827 flights to be cancelled, carrying 410,000 passengers.

Even if you’re not travelling on the actual day of the strike, as we discovered with easyJet in Zurich, the chaos still hits you. The cancellations and forced re-routing of flights mean planes and personnel are stuck in the wrong airports, crews’ shifts end before slots become available and there are barely enough hotel rooms to put up stranded travellers overnight.

If you thought easyJet, Ryanair and BA are badly hit by all this, pity Air France. Its workers have downed tools on 15 days since February and just announced another four days of industrial action in June. In May they forced the resignation of the chief executive after he resisted their demands for a 5.1% pay rise. The French rate of inflation? 1.9%.

Meanwhile, Paris commuters have been enduring rolling rail strikes and — last time I was there — blockades and strikes by taxi drivers protesting against Uber. So much for Macron’s free market revolution. Little wonder his efforts to woo the City have largely come to naught.

As those of us limping back into London a full 24 hours late last night can testify, France is definitely not open for business, no matter what the president would have us believe.

Sir Martin Sorrell pulled out of his keynote speech at London Tech Week this morning. Given today’s blanket coverage of his alleged brothel-creeping antics, that’s hardly surprising.

But it could foreshadow a further problem for the former Sage of Soho. If the scandal around Britain’s highest-profile executive is such that he can no longer attend public events, will he really be able to create WPP Mk II?

The present volume of fuss will die down, but in the #MeToo era, one has to wonder whether big clients will want to be associated with him any more.

Meanwhile, a non-disclosure agreement with WPP bans him from poaching or disclosing any knowledge about his now arch-rival’s ways and wiles, from potential M&A to client relationships. Even for a force of nature such as Sir Martin, pitching for business while partially gagged and tainted by scandal will prove no easy task.