Choose France: staying on course for attractiveness

Despite the annual Choose France summit having been postponed in June because of the health crisis, the President of the French Republic decided to meet with about a hundred managers of major foreign groups by videoconference on 24 January before the face-to-face event.

With this meeting, he “maintained contact” with major economic players from all over the world and made an “route point on their investment projects in France”. The French government website indeed reminded that this meeting was also an opportunity for President Macron “to remind his desire to pursue a policy favourable to investments and to enhance the attractiveness of the French economy”. 

The “France Relance” plan to put the crisis behind

The meeting was an opportunity to reaffirm France’s economic strategy: to carry out “profound reforms”, despite the health crisis, and “to be pro-business”, particularly by lowering corporate taxes, an attitude that “has already considerably strengthened France’s attractiveness”.

The President thus recalled that the French government had just launched the 100 billion euro France Relance plan, which should “prepare France for the next decade”. This plan sets out several goals to be achieved, including “the rise of a greener economy with energy renovations and new mobility” as well as “digital transformation”.

Choose France summits, despite the crisis

Attracting more companies to invest in France, making them “Choose France”: these are the clear objectives of the Choose France summits which, since 2017, have brought together around 200 international CEOs in Versailles every year to encourage them to invest in France. For France, these summits contribute to instilling a “long-term dynamic” that is part of “a collective reflection on how to rethink and reorient our economic models for a more resilient and fairer post-COVID world”. 

For this mini-summit with major world leaders, which was therefore held in the form of a videoconference, was also present the Minister of Foreign Trade who said that despite the crisis, there is “a good investment dynamic in France”. Admittedly, the minister continued, “the total volume of investments is falling, but much less than for Great Britain or Germany”.

The Davos Agenda, after the crisis

It is in this “wait-and-see” context, and the very day after this Choose France mini-summit that the French Head of State once again defended the attractiveness of the country during an exchange with the President and founder of the World Economic Forum. This video interview, which was held on 26 January as part of the Davos Agenda, a series of virtual events on the theme of the “great reset” of the world after the pandemic, aimed to outline the outline of a global economic recovery.  According to the French President, the aim was to “build a bridge between the world of today and the world of tomorrow”, to “build the economy of tomorrow”, i.e. an economy that “will have to think about innovation, vulnerability and humanity at the same time, and will therefore have to build another compatible competitiveness”, in particular by helping to "solve climate problems".

To know more: 

- on the Choose France mini-summit  

- on the France Relance plan 

- on the Davos Agenda organised by the World Economic Forum

Photo credit: © elysee.fr