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.
The American e-commerce giant Amazon must notably invest more than 1.2 billion euros in France and create more than 3,000 jobs, the Elysée announced during the day. Earlier, the Ministry of the Economy had put forward five projects in various industries (fertilizers, nickel, aviation, household robots, chemicals) and three others from banks which will hire in Paris.
Several pharmaceutical groups, including the American Pfizer and the British AstraZeneca, have also announced that they will commit to investing a total of more than 1 billion additional euros in health in France.
Amazon will invest “more than 1.2 billion euros in France” in its logistics and Web infrastructure, with the creation of “more than 3,000 jobs,” the Elysée announced on Sunday. These new investments relate to the development of Amazon Web Services’ cloud infrastructure, especially in the area of ??generative artificial intelligence, as well as the logistics infrastructure for parcel distribution. This should lead to the creation of more than 3,000 new direct permanent jobs, assured the Elysée.
The American giant had previously announced 2,000 job creations in 2024, to reach 24,000 permanent employees in the country by the end of the year, particularly in its logistics centers.
The Pfizer laboratory states in a press release that it plans to invest 500 million euros over five years to develop research collaborations and increase clinical trials in anti-cancer therapies and hematology. During previous editions of Choose France, Pfizer committed to investing more than 1 billion euros (520 million over five years announced in 2022 and 500 million over four years announced in 2023). To date, more than three-quarters of this amount, or “more than 730 million euros, have already been allocated to projects” of R
AstraZeneca, for its part, announced a new investment of 388 million dollars (more than 360 million euros) to develop and make “greener” the entire production of its Dunkirk site (North), dedicated to respiratory diseases. . It brings to “more than 2.2 billion dollars” (more than 2 billion euros) the investments made in France since 2020, according to the laboratory, which has more than 2,000 employees in the territory.
Another British laboratory, GSK intends to invest an additional 140 million euros in France, notably on its Evreux (Eure) site, added the Elysée, while an investment of 28 million euros from Switzerland Novartis is planned in nuclear medicine, with 25 jobs at stake.
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 should announce its plan to invest 1.3 billion euros for 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 by 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, announced for his part the creation of a nickel refining plant in the municipalities of Blanquefort and Parempuyre (Nouvelle-Aquitaine) by the company KL1, located 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 factory is scheduled to come into service in 2026,” he continued. Lilium develops vertical take-off and landing devices in Germany.
According to Roland Lescure, the manufacturer of the luxurious Thermomix household robot, the German 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 .
