Don’t miss an unusual meeting this Monday where the Prime Minister will thank the bosses who continue to invest in France. The Choose France summit will be for French actors, and fortunately: foreigners dreaming of joining France will not take to the streets this time.
The number of international projects has fallen by 14% in the last year, and everything suggests that this year will be even worse. French companies are also putting the brakes on: this year, there will be more factory closures than factory openings, say our colleagues at New factory Friday.
This summit is a great sign of recognition for business leaders who continue to believe in it. Nevertheless, this is the height of hypocrisy. Burdened by political instability and conservatism, France is stuck while other countries accelerate.
Retirement obsession
Completely disconnected from economic reality, the deputies have only three obsessions this week: retirement, retirement and retirement. For once, the left and the right have united to allow French citizens to leave the workforce earlier than planned, while ensuring that their pensions increase in line with prices and their tax benefits are maintained. These three requests will cost us several billion euros every year. With this very exciting news: retirement will once again be at the heart of the 2027 presidential debate.
During the three weeks of parliamentary debate, almost not a word was said about youth, education, innovation, industry or climate. Our neighbors had difficulty understanding our passion for retirement. Residents have long worked until the age of 65 years or more. A few weeks ago, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz even offered everyone who wants to work beyond the legal age (67 years!), in exchange a salary tax exemption of up to 2,000 euros.
The move is not up for debate. Germany is instead thinking about the best way to prepare for the future. Berlin pledged to mobilize 500 billion euros to lower energy prices, build data centers, modernize railways and strengthen its army. How to optimize these funds? This is the only question that agitates parliamentarians across the Rhine. In China, there is of course no debate, but the ambition remains the same: Beijing has just presented a five-year plan to decarbonize its industry and strengthen its leadership in aerospace, renewable energy and quantum computing.
And France? In an abundance of caution, he made several budget adjustments this week to prevent the deficit from getting out of control. He resigned himself to canceling credit which was deemed unnecessary. Among the victims: the “Investing for France 2030” mission, research and teaching. It’s all said.
