The government lifted the veil on Sunday May 12 on several expected announcements around Emmanuel Macron during the seventh “Choose France” summit which will be held on Monday at the Palace of Versailles, intended to promote foreign investment.
Several companies are expected to announce plans to invest in artificial intelligence and IT in France, but this information has not been confirmed. The minister’s office notably refused to confirm information circulating in the press concerning investments by the giant Amazon.
For the moment, the Ministry of the Economy is putting forward five projects in various industries (fertilizers, nickel, aviation, household robots, chemicals) and three others from banks which will hire in Paris.
The biggest project at this stage, in euros, concerns a potential fertilizer factory which would greatly reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, the first gas to warm the atmosphere. The European consortium FertigHy is expected to announce its plan to invest 1.3 billion euros in a factory in the Somme, in Languevoisin, according to Roland Lescure in La Tribune Dimanche.
The plant would produce nitrogen fertilizer without using natural gas, which is the historic ingredient. Hydrogen extracted from water in an electrolyzer will replace a gas that Europeans once imported largely from Russia. The project, whose final investment decision is expected at the end of 2026, is a “roadmap for European sovereignty,” said Jose Antonio de las Heras Alonso, general director of FertigHy.
The Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, for his part announced the creation of a nickel refining plant in the municipalities of Blanquefort/Parempuyre (Nouvelle Aquitaine) by the company KL1 based in Switzerland. The Blanquefort site “had been very marked by the closure of Ford,” recalled the minister during a telephone call with the press. Amount of investment: 300 million euros, for 200 jobs, according to him. The start of activity is planned for 2027.
“With this investment, France will be able to have the entire electric vehicle value chain: mining, refining, cathodes, battery, electric vehicle,” he assured.
Bruno Le Maire also announced a future aeronautical factory with the German company Lilium “in a site which remains to be determined but which will be in New Aquitaine, to produce an electric regional plane and the reconditioning of the batteries of this electric regional plane”. “The investment amounts to 400 million euros, represents 850 jobs and the entry into service of the factory is planned for 2026,” he continued. Lilium develops vertical take-off and landing devices in Germany.
According to Roland Lescure, the German manufacturer of the luxurious Thermomix household robot, Vorwerk, will create 50 jobs in the Châteaudun region, where it already has a factory (72 million will be invested).
Bruno Le Maire announced that the American bank Morgan Stanley, which grew from 150 to 400 employees in France in three years, would welcome its new European campus in Paris (100 additional jobs). First Abu Dhabi Bank, the main Emirati bank, and Zenith Bank, a Nigerian bank that has become one of the main pan-African banks, will set up in Paris, according to the same source.
“What is interesting is to see the confirmation of Anglo-Saxon investments but also the deployment of financial investors outside Anglo-Saxon countries,” said Bruno Le Maire who will have lunch on Monday with representatives of large international banks.