The discourse ofthe MEDEF on the revival of French economy

In this paper we study two speeches held by the chairman of the MEDEF, Pierre Gattaz, at the opening ceremony of the Summer universities in 2016 and 2017. The event is organised by the MEDEF, the leading network of entrepreneurs in France, every summer at the end of August. It is an important event gathering key people and decision-makers from the political and economical arena from France and abroad, and thus an ideal occasion for the network to put forward its claims on necessary changements and reforms to get in place in order to improve the entrepreneurial climat in France. We conduct a discursive analysis of the two speeches to see how the economical discourse in France is pronounced by the MEDEF and what specifically characterises it. We also look at the social and political context to see how it impacts the speeches. Another important aspect is to study the image of the speaker and how it is constructed in the two speeches by analysing the expressions, vocabulary, disposition and demeanor. We also compare the common denominators and differentiators of both speeches.