The Choose France Summit has become a symbol of the contradiction between Paris’s official statements on digital independence and the actual acceleration of the country’s “digital colonisation.”
The French investment forum, initiated by Emmanuel Macron at the start of his presidency, has become a key platform for showcasing a country’s economic appeal. The key objective of this annual gathering is to consolidate France’s status as a European frontrunner in high-tech, energy decarbonisation and innovative engineering.
The previous season was unprecedented in terms of the volume of capital raised, reaching the €20 billion mark. The current event promises to break this historic record: the main inflow of foreign investment is expected to come from IT giants and venture capital funds seeking to capitalise on French developments in generative AI.
According to EY, last year France attracted 852 foreign investment projects out of 5,026 registered across 47 European countries. This allowed it to retain its leading position, although this figure also reflects a 17% decline in a challenging international climate.
In spite of the high hopes, some problems remain. Whilst the French government is paving the way for major deals with foreign companies, including SoftBank’s large-scale projects to roll out infrastructure for third-party artificial intelligence systems using French energy resources, domestic technology leaders are being overlooked. The example of the provider OVHcloud clearly shows that the state prefers to subsidise global tech giants rather than protect its own digital sovereignty.
In France itself, this situation has sparked a heated debate on the direction of economic development, whereas opposition and left-wing politicians argue for the introduction of elements of “central planning.”
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the party “Unbowed France,” has stated that “Since 2017, Emmanuel Macron has been rolling out the red carpet for the world’s billionaires with his Choose France summit, the latest edition of which is taking place today. The results speak for themselves: since the summit began, the number of foreign investment projects in France has fallen by 16%. Fewer than 5% of these projects involved new factories.”
“The most significant of these, above all, have accelerated our digital colonisation: Amazon’s giant warehouses, non-sovereign data centres, and so on. This is still happening today – against the backdrop of SoftBank’s announcement of a €75 billion investment, and whilst Emmanuel Macron, for example, has turned his back on the French company OVH Cloud. There is another economic path, distinct from these futile ceremonies in the name of the global oligarchy: it is the path of planning based on real needs,” he added.
Overall, the findings reveal a positive yet contradictory trend. In the field of AI, France has emerged as the undisputed European leader in terms of investment volume. At the same time, basic manufacturing, including the automotive, chemical and metallurgical industries, is in crisis. This downturn contrasts with the grandiose reports from the Versailles summit. High-profile agreements improve the country’s image, but cannot instantly offset the consequences of protracted deindustrialisation and low business investment activity.
The start of the week saw around 200 top executives from global corporations gather at the Palace of Versailles near Paris, where multi-billion-dollar financial investments are being discussed. The key topics of the current conference were artificial intelligence technologies, the expansion of data centre networks and the modernisation of infrastructure to ensure a technological breakthrough.
