Emmanuel Macron’s numerous trips to reaffirm French strategy

The President of the Republic has planned several industrial trips this week, with the aim of showing the French that the reindustrialization of the country is indeed underway.

Emmanuel Macron has a busy industrial agenda. It is Monday, May 13, in Matougues, in Marne, to visit the McCain factory. He will then travel to Seine-Maritime on May 15 to inaugurate the Fécamp wind farm, and the next day he will be in Flamanville for the launch of the nuclear EPR.

It is no coincidence that this presidential program comes on the occasion of the summit “Choose France”where Emmanuel Macron receives foreign bosses in Versailles, but also in the middle of the campaign for the European elections.

The Covid crisis has in fact shown the great dependence of the French economy on Asia in many sectors, such as pharmacy and electronic components. The government is therefore seeking to relocate and reindustrialize, particularly with the France 2030 recovery plan. Regarding the number of jobs created and factories opened, the results have been rather positive since 2017. The executive has recorded more than 200 net openings of factories and production lines in the region, including the establishment of “gigafactories”battery factories or even semiconductors.

Ambitious goals

However, the road still seems long, because the government’s objective of increasing the share of industry in French GDP from 10 to 15% by 2035, to catch up with the European average, is very ambitious, if not impossible. France faces two major obstacles, labor and energy. Nearly 60,000 positions are unfilled in the industry, particularly for welders, boilermakers and even engineers. Industrial flagships, such as Airbus or Naval group, refuse contracts for lack of qualified personnel. In addition, the productivity of the French, that is to say, collective efficiency, is declining.

Finally, energy remains the crux of the matter in international competition. The challenge for manufacturers is to find cheap, carbon-free energy. The French strategy is to become the European leader in this carbon-free energy, thanks to the new energies that it is developing, such as offshore wind power, but above all thanks to nuclear energy.

This is why, after 12 years of delay and billions of euros of slippage, the commissioning of the Flamanville EPR is long awaited. Emmanuel Macron wanted it to start before the European vote on June 9, to try to recall a form of French greatness.