“The country is moving forward”: Emmanuel Macron wanted to show on Monday that the page on pensions was beginning to be turned after a series of announcements on reindustrialization, with the boost of billionaire Elon Musk who dangled him an investment In France.
“I am confident that Tesla will make significant investments in France in the future”, launched, without further details, the boss of the pioneering company in electric cars, after being received in particular by the head of the State at the Élysée.
The one who is also boss of SpaceX and majority shareholder of Twitter said he was “impressed by the welcome given by President Macron and the French government to the industry”.
Elon Musk was in France for the sixth edition of “Choose France”, which brought together more than 200 foreign bosses at the Palace of Versailles on Monday and made it possible to announce 28 projects with foreign capital for a total of 13 billion euros, with 8,000 direct jobs at stake. A record since the first edition in 2018 of this annual meeting wanted by Emmanuel Macron.
Put in difficulty since the beginning of the year by the pension crisis, the president seeks to rebound politically and he multiplies the trips and announcements on the revitalization of French industry, in particular in the field of electric cars.
“We are moving forward and there is a determination”, “the country continues to create”, he launched in an interview with the 8 p.m. television news on TF1, insisting once again, as he has done many times. times over the past week, on the “constancy” of its economic policy to lower the cost of labor and attract investors, while accelerating the ecological transition.
“Even when there are disputes, we do not change, we do not head to tail”, he pleaded, “investors see the strength of what we have done”.
Tax cuts on the horizon
He sketched other good news for the French.
By promising to “focus” on “the middle classes” the two billion euros in tax cuts for households planned by 2027, even if he gave neither details nor a precise date. And by setting the objective “that we absorb” the inflation on food products which is cutting into purchasing power “by the fall”.
Emmanuel Macron, who is due to begin a new diplomatic chapter this week with several international trips, also challenged any form of “contempt” for the French.
The “casserolades”, these concerts of saucepans which accompany his movements, have gradually become less audible, while the unions are preparing on Tuesday to resume dialogue with the executive.
In addition to Elon Musk, were notably invited to Choose France Sunil Bharti Mittal, president of the diversified Indian group Bharti Entreprises, Lakhsmi Mittal, the executive president of ArcelorMittal, or even Pekka Lundmark, the CEO. from Nokia.
Batteries and solar panels
The largest of the 28 investment projects was unveiled by Emmanuel Macron on Friday in Dunkirk, in the North: 5.2 billion euros (about 7.6 billion $ CA) for a giga-factory of new generation batteries from the Taiwanese ProLogium – which has never produced them in large series before – with 3,000 jobs at stake.
The amount of public subsidies for this project, which Brussels has yet to validate, has not been made public, but would be between 1 and 1.5 billion euros, according to the newspaper Les Echos. An amount that the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, did not want to confirm.
Another flagship project, the establishment in Sarreguemines, in eastern France, of a photovoltaic panel factory by Holosolis, an offshoot of the European group Innoenergy, for 710 million euros (CA$1 million), representing 1,700 jobs. .
With an annual production of 5 gigawatts, this plant, which will start producing in 2025, will be “capable of making one million European households independent per year” in electricity, explained to AFP the president of Holosolis, Jan Jacob Boom Wichers.
Also in energy, the start-up Newcleo announces 3 billion euros of investments over the period 2025-2030 to develop a small modular nuclear reactor of the SMR type.
Among other projects, the Swedish furniture giant Ikea announces 906 million euros of investment in France by 2026, including the creation of a logistics center near Toulouse.
In the pharmaceutical sector, Pfizer is injecting an additional 500 million euros and the British GSK, nearly 400 million.