A long first-time meeting was held between Prof Muhammad Yunus and newly elected Paris Mayor Emmanuel Grégoire in his office in the gorgeous historic Paris building at the center of the city on May 29.

Grégoire was interested to take the lead in creating a social business day in Paris and taking that to cities in other countries in the world to make it a global day.

Prof Yunus and Grégoire, who became mayor at the end of March, discussed a wide range of social businesses in France, particularly in Paris.

They spoke about the role that France and Paris have played in the global social business movement, including the special role played by his predecessor, two-time mayor Anne Hidalgo, in establishing Les Canaux by converting a historical building in an important location of
Paris into a house for social business and social innovation at the heart of the city.

“The Maison des Canaux” was inaugurated by Prof Yunus in 2017 in the presence of the Mayor of Paris and the minister of social economy.

Prof Yunus and Mayor Grégoire talked about building a world of three zeroes and the role of young people creating three zero clubs, said the Yunus Centre on Saturday.

There are now nearly 7,000 Three Zero Clubs in the world to address the most pressing problems facing humanity today.

The three zeroes are zero net carbon emissions, zero wealth concentration, and zero unemployment.

Prof. Yunus talked about the Giving Pledge already created by 250 of the world’s billionaires.

It is a commitment to give away all of their wealth upon their death to charity funds.

He suggested that billionaires could instead leave their entire wealth, or part of it, to create social business funds which will not exhaust themselves over time and may even grow, unlike charity funds which continuously shrink. The wealth they leave behind in social business funds under social business rules would be returned to the funds from those social businesses, including the profits generated.

The money would be reinvested repeatedly to solve social problems.

This would be an effective tool to stop the unstoppable process of wealth concentration.

He deputed the deputy mayor for external affairs, Audrey Pulvar, to attend the Social Business Day in Dhaka at the end of June, accompanied by Elisa Yavschitz, a member of the Council of Paris and former President of Les Canaux, who was also at the meeting to begin the collaboration between the Mayor’s office and the Yunus Centre on social business.

Prof Yunus also discussed with the Mayor the potential of young people to transform the world through the power of technology.

Lamiya Morshed, Executive Director of the Yunus Centre, and Yoan Noguier, Head of “Yunus France,” attended the meeting.