2023-05-15 20:29:51
France
Macron boasts of record investments and a country that is “moving forward”
“The country is moving forward”: Emmanuel Macron made a series of announcements on reindustrialization on Monday, with the boost of Elon Musk who dangled him an investment.
Updated
Emmanuel Macron on TF1 on May 15, 2023.
AFP
“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 of the Republic 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 8 p.m. TF1, insisting once again, as he has done many times for a 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 don’t change, we don’t head to tail”, he pleaded, “investors see the strength of what we have done”.
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. Which, “out of 1500 billion compulsory levies”, “is not ambitious but ridiculous”, gritted the boss of LR Eric Ciotti. And by setting the objective “that we absorb” the inflation on food products which is cutting into purchasing power “by the fall”.
“Over the interviews, it seems that Emmanuel Macron is making a denial of reality on macronism”, lambasted in return the president of the deputies RN Marine Le Pen, denouncing the “impoverishment of the middle classes, (the) savagery of society, (the) contempt for democracy…”
Emmanuel Macron, who is due to begin a new diplomatic chapter this week with several international trips, has challenged any form of “contempt” for the French.
“He despises 9 out of 10 assets, all the unions and the National Assembly”, thus still estimated Monday the first secretary of the PS Olivier Faure. “No one listens to him anymore. No one believes him anymore. He can no longer govern the country”, however assured the president of the Insoumis deputies Mathilde Panot. The casseroles that accompany his movements have become gradually less audible, while the unions are preparing to resume dialogue with the executive on Tuesday.
In addition to Elon Musk, were notably invited to Choose France Sunil Bharti Mittal, president of the diversified Indian group Bharti Entreprises, the executive president of ArcelorMittal Lakhsmi Mittal or the CEO of Nokia Pekka Lundmark.
Batteries and solar panels
The biggest of the 28 investment projects was unveiled by Emmanuel Macron on Friday in the North, in Dunkirk: 5.2 billion euros for a gigafactory of new generation batteries from Taiwanese ProLogium – which has never produced them in large quantities before. series – with 3000 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 Échos”. An amount that Bruno Le Maire did not want to confirm.
Another flagship project, the establishment in Moselle, in Sarreguemines, of a photovoltaic panel factory by Holosolis, an offshoot of the European group Innoenergy, for 710 million euros, 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 is announcing three billion investments over the period 2025-2030 to develop a small modular 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 pharmacy, Pfizer is injecting an additional 500 million euros and the British GSK nearly 400 million.
(AFP)
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