Macron courts leading CEOs
• President hosts business leaders in bid to attract foreign investment
President Emmanuel Macron’s campaign for a “French Renaissance” was poised to kick into overdrive on Monday as he prepared to welcome 140 multinational business leaders to Versailles before the start of this week’s jamboree of the rich and powerful in Davos.
President Emmanuel Macron’s campaign for a “French Renaissance” was poised to kick into overdrive on Monday as he prepared to welcome 140 multinational business leaders before this week’s jamboree of the rich and powerful in Davos.
The business-friendly president was scheduled to host executives at the Versailles chateau for an event billed as a warm-up for Tuesday’s opening of the World Economic Forum.
Several groups will use the conference to announce major French investments, with Facebook revealing on Monday that it would pour an extra €10m into its artificial intelligence centre in Paris. Japan’s Toyota is also due to reveal details of its €400m enlargement of its Onnaing car factory in northern France — which Macron visited before the Versailles summit — with Les Echos newspaper reporting the move will bring 700 jobs.
A former investment banker, Macron has vowed to shake the economy out of its torpor. In his first months in office, he pushed through reforms of rigid labour laws and slashed wealth taxes and levies on capital gains.
Economic growth has been forecast to rise to 1.9% in 2018 by the central bank and Macron has also pledged to cut corporation tax to 25% by 2022 from 33% at present. A survey by the US Chamber of Commerce and consultancy Bain & Company in November 2017 found a record 72% of US investors were optimistic about the French economy, up from just 30% in 2016.
But some executives are keeping their enthusiasm in check, saying that the bigger challenges of cutting France’s huge debt pile and its public spending — and pushing through the tax cuts for businesses — still lie ahead.
“We’re still waiting to see more clearly on government reforms,” Pierre-Andre de Chalendar, CEO of glass and building materials giant SaintGobain, told the Le Figaro daily on Monday.
France’s deficit for 2017 is forecast to fall under the eurozone limit of 3% of GDP for the first time in 10 years.
“Even with a deficit under the 3% limit, France still has one of the worst financial situations among almost all its eurozone partners,” Didier Migaud, president of France’s Court of Auditors, said.
Macron’s predecessors have held similar gatherings of CEOs, but the scale of his Choose France conference goes far beyond those hosted by Francois Hollande or Nicolas Sarkozy.
The Socialist Hollande hosted 34 world business leaders in 2014, while right winger Sarkozy rolled out the red carpet for 25 in 2011.
“We’ve taken advantage of the fact that economic leaders are coming to Europe by inviting 100 CEOs of the biggest world companies and developing 100 projects with them for France,” a source in the presidency said.
The bosses of Coca-Cola, Google, Siemens and Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, and the chief operating officer of Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg, are among those to have taken up the invitation.
While Macron has been given much of the credit for boosting France’s standing on the global stage, foreign investment had already begun to pick up before his May 2017 election.
But such investments have failed to make a significant difference on the jobs front, with France’s unemployment rate still stuck at 9.7% — nearly twice that of Britain or Germany.
“Let’s not call them reforms if it’s not really the case. These aren’t revolutions, but the country has certainly changed direction,” Credit Agricole head Philippe Brassac said.
The Versailles conference comes the day before leaders from 60 countries and 1,700 businesses start descending on Davos for the world’s most exclusive talking shop. Macron will take the stage on Wednesday, when he is set to cut a contrasting figure to that of US President Donald Trump.