FDecoding - Legislative Elections in France
France
France is preparing to renew the members of its National Assembly during the legislative elections on June 30 and July 7. At France Digitale, we believe it's essential to decipher the ideas and programs of the various political parties, particularly when it comes to the economy, innovation, social issues and Europe.
France is preparing to renew the members of its National Assembly during the legislative elections on June 30 and July 7. At France Digitale, we believe it’s essential to decipher the ideas and programs of the various political parties, particularly when it comes to the economy, innovation, social issues and Europe.
Today, startups represent 25,000 companies in France. That equates to more than 1 million direct and indirect jobs. They have penetrated the entire economic fabric and contribute to wealth creation throughout France, contracting with very small businesses, SMEs, intermediate-sized enterprises, and large French groups to drive their digital transformation.
They also represent an opportunity for France and Europe to gain a certain level of strategic autonomy over key technologies in an uncertain geopolitical context. However, the economic model of startups, while more mature today than ten years ago, still needs to be consolidated.
More than ever, startups need clients to purchase their innovative solutions. More than ever, they need funding from investors willing to take risks and sometimes invest heavily to develop innovations that will address major challenges, especially environmental ones. More than ever, they need to recruit rare and highly sought-after profiles by their foreign competitors.
For all these reasons, the upcoming election has multidimensional stakes, and some political party proposals are, for France Digitale, red lines that could seriously jeopardize French innovation.
1- It is not reasonable to reject foreign investments in France. Accepting foreign capital does not mean « selling France » or risking all our champions being taken over by American or Asian interests. Accepting foreign capital allows companies to grow and finance their expansion. It also enables them to access new business channels, as how can one enter the American or Asian market without economic partners on the ground?
If we want our French companies to be international champions, they must be able to rely on international economic partners. These partners often have massive investment capacities necessary for financing strategic and capital-intensive projects, particularly in breakthrough technologies such as AI, quantum, or biotech.
While France Digitale has always fought to consolidate the entire European financing chain – from seed to exit – we also know that our companies need these international funding channels.
We are therefore very vigilant about proposals to increase control over foreign investments in France or even to strictly prohibit non-European investors from taking stakes in French companies.
2- It is not desirable to prohibit the legal immigration of talents coming to work in companies experiencing labor shortages. In startups, 1 in 5 companies has used the « French Tech Visa, » a program that accelerates visa processing times for non-Europeans – and their families – coming to work or found a startup.
In practice, beneficiaries are developers or engineers, with highly sought-after skills for startups, coming from India, Morocco, Algeria, Ukraine, Syria, Uzbekistan, the Philippines, or the United States.
If Paris is now established as the strategic region for AI globally, it is because France has become one of the easiest countries in the world to attract qualified talents to develop breakthrough technologies. Recognized not only for its quality of life but also for the excellence of our education, R&D labs, and our network of companies in AI.
While France Digitale has always fought to accelerate the training of everyone in digital skills and professions, we are therefore very vigilant about proposals to complicate immigration, even for jobs in high demand. Relying solely on « French people present in France, » as some propose, will never be enough: our ecosystem needs diversity and richness, not isolationism.
3- Finally, the only viable scale for our French companies is the European scale. Be it in terms of regulation, economic market, or the movement of goods, services, people, and capital. We would even need to strengthen the European market by adding a fifth dimension to these freedoms of movement: the freedom of movement of innovations.
Our French companies are first and foremost European companies, and they will only become international champions if they capitalize on the 450 million European inhabitants and can simply offer their innovations to the 27 member states of the European Union. Isolated, France cannot exist on the economic, geopolitical, or technological world map.
France Digitale fights for a Buy European Tech Act, which is why we are very vigilant about all programs aiming to exclude France from economic treaties or to marginalize it from European policies. We need harmonization and unity, not division and individualism.