French CEOs urge voters to back Remain

London / Bloomberg

The leaders of some of France’s top companies urged their British neighbors to stick with the EU to safeguard jobs and investment, less than 48 hours before polls open for the Brexit referendum.
In a joint letter published in English on Tuesday, 34 corporations including 16 listed on France’s benchmark stock index, called on the U.K. to stay in the EU to retain access to the European single market. “Today’s jobs and tomorrow’s investment — and hence future jobs — depend on the U.K. being firmly and lastingly anchored within the single market,” the business leaders said in an open letter. Airbus Group SE, Axa SA, Scor SE, JCDecaux SA, Michelin & Cie., Orange SA, Technip SA, Vinci SA, Danone, Engie SA, Bouygues SA, BNP Paribas SA are among the firms that signed the one-page appeal.
“Britain is Great. Trade barriers outside the single market and years of uncertainty about your links with your major trading partners would fundamentally weaken the business case for investing in the U.K. For you, for us, for all of us: please don’t leave!”
A poll in Le Parisian daily that showed that 63 percent of French people want the U.K. to remain in the single market.