Dubbed by contemporaries as the “Macron of business”, Alexandre Bompard this week took over as chief executive of the French group Carrefour, the world’s second-largest retailer by revenue. The 44-year-old, described by those same advocates as “young, smart and successful”, is one of half a dozen new business leaders on a self-appointed mission to reform corporate France.

They are seeking to cast off the stuffy culture of yesteryear and do for the French corporate world what Emmanuel Macron, the country’s 39-year-old president, threatens to do for politics: shake up the old established order and remake France for the 21st century.

“France has for so many years been too rigid and bureaucratic,” says Frank Bournois, dean of the business school ESCP Europe. “The election of Macron alongside this new group of chief executives is very promising. We now have a new generation of people who are more ambitious, energetic and open to risk-taking, which could push France and Europe to innovation and reform.”