Paris (AFP)

Continue to convince that France is attractive, despite social movements, and that the reforms will continue: this is the objective of Emmanuel Macron and the government, who received nearly 200 French and foreign bosses at Versailles on Monday.

For the third consecutive year, the "Choose France" event will make it possible to forge links and announce investments on the eve of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, and thus to display the orientation resolutely favorable to the world of affairs of the French authorities.

In addition to the President and Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, 19 members of the government will be there to welcome under the gold of the Palace of Versailles nearly 150 foreign bosses, large American groups (Coca-Cola, Snap Inc, Fedex, Google, Netflix .. .), Asian (Hyundai Motors, Samsung Electronics, Fosun, Toyota ...), African (Cooper Pharma, Orascom) and European (Rolls Royce, EY, ING Bank ...).

Before a dinner introduced by Emmanuel Macron, "more than 400 bilateral meetings" will be organized as well as two workshops on "the industry of the future" and "sustainable value chains", at a time when the weight of the environmental factor is increasing in the criteria purchasing and that France says it is "very well placed" to meet this challenge.

The Elysée notes that between 2017 and 2019, the attractiveness of France increased from 22nd to 15th place in the ranking published by the WEF, "the best progression in the top 20".

"In order to consolidate this positive dynamic", the government will continue "the educational work on the reforms and transformations carried out in France to encourage foreign companies to invest more in the territories", according to a press release from the Presidency of the Republic.

To illustrate the attractiveness of France, Emmanuel Macron will visit Monday morning in Dunkirk an industrial site of the group of the British pharmaceutical group AstraZeneca, inaugurated last year.

France remains, as in 2018, the second destination for foreign investors in Europe behind Germany and ahead of the United Kingdom, according to a study commissioned for the occasion by Business France, France's promotion agency abroad , at the Kantar Institute.

- impact of strikes -

"France's attractiveness is stabilizing at a high level: 87% of executives abroad consider it attractive, ie 13 points more than in 2016", according to this survey carried out during the last quarter of 2019 with 573 executives in Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States, India, China and the United Arab Emirates.

"If Germany remains considered the country with the most to gain from Brexit in Europe, the gap with France is narrowing significantly", to 5 percentage points against 18 points in 2016, also notes the study.

84% of executives abroad consider that France has a "stable legal and fiscal business environment" (compared to 94% for Germany), while 79% credit it with a "legal and business tax easy to understand "(89% for Germany).

But 71% of investors think that the strikes against the pension reform, which is still underway, "have a negative impact on the attractiveness of France", a percentage which rises to 80% among the British.

The impact of the transport strikes on the economic activity of the country remains globally reduced, like that of the movement of "yellow vests" of winter 2018/2019, but "the question is how it ends", declared Christophe Lecourtier, CEO of Business France to AFP.

"If at the end, as is likely, the fundamentals of the reform eventually pass", then "we break with the usual scenario of the previous five years where the reformist momentum stops after two years on a bone" , says Mr. Lecourtier.

"In terms of industrial attractiveness, we race in the lead", rejoices the director general of Business France, who believes that "we know a beginning of + success story +" with net creations of sites and industrial jobs in 2018 and 2019.

© 2020 AFP