The scene takes place at the beginning of June 2024, on the sidelines of the ceremonies for the 70th anniversary of the Normandy landings. Transatlantic friendship is in full swing: Emmanuel Macron is taking advantage of a meeting of major French and American bosses to celebrate French attractiveness, in line with the 7th Choose France summit organized a few weeks earlier in Versailles. Smiles, loud applause: when it comes to selling the merits of France, the head of state knows how to do the job. And sometimes even a little too much. Because the meeting had barely ended, he returned to the same audience for a final message. “You can count on me: we won’t touch the tax!” Three days later, the majority list led by Valérie Hayer took a beating in the European elections, and the president announced the dissolution the same evening. “Never again will we be able to trust France,” sigh the American entrepreneurs.
Since then, Emmanuel Macron has tried by all means to justify his risky bet: on July 25, he organized a mini-Choose France summit in Paris to reassure foreign bosses ahead of the Olympic Games. But nothing works: the confidence that he had managed to reinstill over the past seven years with the business community in the country of 35 hours has partly evaporated, as shown by the latest EY barometer. Political uncertainty, changing taxes, uncontrolled public spending: investors are wondering more and more every day which way the French coin will fall. “We have clearly left a well-marked trajectory to swim in the midst of fiscal uncertainty,” notes Denis Ferrand, general manager of Rexecode.
From “chooseries” to giggles
As a result, the “chooseries” of Versailles have given way to the giggles of the international business community. These are paid for in cash: investment projects in France postponed until later, when they are not canceled altogether. Could the decision of the Head of State be the only one responsible for this change in mood? Probably not. From the end of the first quarter – as noted by L’Express in its issue of March 28, 2024 – reindustrialization began to stall.
Since then, caution has turned into a wait-and-see attitude. The Bpifrance Le Lab – Rexecode barometer, carried out at the end of October, is, in this regard, revealing: less than a majority of SME or VSE bosses plan to maintain their investment or hiring projects. Added to this French breakdown, accelerated since the dissolution, is an alarming context. Between the decline in European competitiveness, highlighted in the Draghi report or Donald Trump’s promises of protectionism, the choice of France to build factories or install a head office is no longer obvious. With new taxes in 2025 and reforms at half-mast, we will have to rework the arguments for the next Choose France summit in order to convince foreign investors to continue coming to us. By avoiding false promises.