Emmanuel Macron promises to "halve the deadlines" for an industrial establishment in France

Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credits: Ibrahim Ezzat / ANADOLU AGENCY / Anadolu Agency via AFP 19:27 p.m., May 10, 2023

Emmanuel Macron announced the upcoming implementation of "hypersimplified procedures" to "halve the deadlines" of a new industrial establishment in France, in an interview posted online Wednesday by the weekly Challenges. The head of state, who is to unveil Thursday his strategy to "accelerate" the "reindustrialization" of the country, intends to "reinvest more in turnkey sites, strengthen the use of brownfield sites, also to reconcile industrialization and non-artificialization" of soils.

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"An agenda for simplifying and speeding up our procedures"

"The priority of big investors, whether it's data centers, car factories or large battery factories, Americans, Asians or Europeans, is speed. You can offer them billions in aid, if you take two years to investigate a procedure and it is cubic meters of paper, failure is assured," he said. "I call for an agenda of simplification and acceleration of our procedures, by mobilizing all the actors involved in these decisions," he added. "The key is simplicity and speed", "especially in the face of China and the United States".

President Macron opens, by this interview and Thursday's meeting at the Elysee, a long economic sequence that is part of his attempt to revive his five-year term after the pension reform crisis. And he is focusing on the reindustrialization of the country, described as "the mother of battles" -- after having tackled pensions, long presented in Macron as "the mother of all reforms".

A "coherent" economic policy over the last six years

"Reindustrialising means creating purchasing power, financing our social model, building a future for our children, attracting innovation and talent from all sectors, reducing the foreign trade deficit. And then, of course, stop the dropping out of this France of territories," he pleaded in the Challenges. "If we do not win the battle of industrialization, we will not be able to win that of full employment, give back prospects and projects to the territories and therefore cement our national unity again," he insisted.

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Emmanuel Macron boasts at length the balance sheet of his economic policy over the last six years, which he considers "coherent" after "decades" of "incoherence" and "cowardice". "Over the past six years, we have created 1.7 million jobs, with more than 300 net factory creations since 2017," he said. If this "dynamic" continues, "we will have caught up by the end of the five-year period the shock of deindustrialization due to the 2008 crisis by recreating as many factories and jobs".

A new battery factory in Dunkirk

The head of state says in passing that the France was in 2022 "for the fourth consecutive year" the "first country in Europe in number of foreign investment decisions". On Thursday, he must specify his strategy and in particular the main axes of the draft law "green industry" which will be presented Tuesday in the Council of Ministers. It aims to decline the aid supposed to make it possible to compete against the ambitious industrial policy of the United States.

He will then go to Dunkirk, in the North, for announcements on a new plant for electric vehicle batteries. And on Monday, it will host in Versailles the sixth edition of the "Choose France" summit to attract foreign investment.

Macron advocates 'double shock' to respond to housing crisis

In addition, Emmanuel Macron calls for a "double shock", including a "simplification and reduction of construction delays", to respond to the housing crisis in France. "In my eyes, we need a double shock. First of all, a simplification and a reduction of the deadlines to produce new housing, "he said in an interview with the weekly Challenges posted online Wednesday evening.