Europe 1 with AFP 10:12 p.m., March 13, 2022
According to a report published Monday by Business France, foreign investment projects in France experienced a record level in 2021 both in number of new, taken over or extended sites and in number of jobs created or maintained.
Thus, "1,607 investment decisions have enabled the creation or maintenance of 45,008 jobs," says the agency.
France recorded a record number of foreign investment projects in 2021, the government agency Business France announced on Sunday, underlining the attractiveness of the country a few weeks before the presidential election.
During his five-year term, Emmanuel Macron regularly received foreign bosses at "Choose France" summits to promote the attractions of France as a location, emphasizing until 2020 the reforms of the labor market and the decline corporate taxation, and more recently on the France Relance and France 2030 plans to reindustrialize the territory and promote innovation.
Business takeovers by foreign investors
After experiencing a decline in 2020 due to the pandemic, foreign investment projects rebounded in 2021 above the level of 2019, which was already a record year, according to the results of Business France, which is responsible for promoting the France site abroad.
In total, 1,607 new, taken over or extended sites have made it possible to create or maintain some 45,000 jobs.
Among them are 460 industrial projects, weighing 34% of the induced jobs.
"We have an increase in both the number of projects and the number of jobs of 50% in five years", noted the director general of Business France, Christophe Lecourtier in an interview with AFP.
He specified that the jobs maintained corresponded to takeovers of existing companies by foreign investors.
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The "thermometer of the good economic health of the country"
“Attractiveness is the thermometer of the good economic health of the country”, affirmed for his part to the Echoes the Minister of Foreign Trade and Attractiveness, Franck Riester.
Faced with the record trade deficit recorded by France in 2021, the latter sees in the increase in foreign investment a "reason for hope" to "regain ground in exports and on the national production of goods which are today imported".
Germany was in 2021 the first foreign investor in France in number of projects, with 297 projects, or 18% of the total and also 18% of the jobs created, ahead of the United States with 247 projects, but these exceed it. in terms of jobs, with more than 10,000 jobs, or 22% of the total.
Despite Brexit, the United Kingdom is in third place with 151 projects, or 9% of total projects and also jobs.
In fourth place is Belgium and in fifth the Netherlands, so that Europeans as a whole rank as the first foreign investors in France.
France, first destination for foreign investors in Europe
The classification established by Business France does not take into account the amounts invested, because the projects are carried out over more or less long times, specified Christophe Lecourtier.
"We defend our yellow jersey well", he estimated with reference to the barometer published each year by the firm EY which ranked France as the first destination for foreign investment in Europe for the years 2019 and 2020, and should publish its next ranking in May or June.
Christophe Lecourtier underlined that a good number of projects were linked to the areas of development defined by the France Relance and France 2030 plans, which notably "highlighted industry in general, health, electric cars, renewable energies ".
More than 300 foreign companies are thus among the winners of France Relance calls for projects, with at least 4,000 jobs at stake.
Majority site extensions for industrial projects
In January, Emmanuel Macron had for his part announced 21 foreign investments for an amount of four billion euros which should make it possible to create more than 10,000 jobs.
If the new establishments account in 2021 for half (51%) of the projects identified by Business France, the extensions "represent 44% of the projects and almost half of the jobs", according to the agency which sees in it "a sign of the renewed confidence of foreign companies that have already invested in France".
With regard to industrial projects, extensions of existing sites are by far the majority, with 83% of the total.
"We note a strong growth in industrial projects" among which German companies are strongly represented, while American investments are more often made in more labor-intensive services, such as Amazon warehouses, further notes Christophe Lecourtier .