PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron announced €93bil (US$108bil) in foreign investments at the “Choose France” summit, with the bulk coming from an investment pledge from SoftBank Group Corp.
SoftBank will invest as much as €75bil to build 5GW of artificial intelligence (AI) data centre capacity in France, a deal that Macron personally negotiated when he travelled to Japan earlier this year to pitch the country as a top European hub for AI infrastructure.
“The United States is going fast, China is going fast, Europe, Japan, Asia have to also go fast not to be left out,” SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son said yesterday in Paris, standing alongside Macron.
The initial tranche of the SoftBank investment will be €45bil – which is the amount included in Macron’s €93bil figure – that will seek to deliver 3.1GW of AI data centre capacity in Northern France by 2031.
SoftBank called the project its biggest AI investment in Europe.
“This is the concrete evidence that France is attractive,” Macron said. “This is the consecration of years of efforts.”
Last year, Macron touted a total of €109bil of investments into AI, including some €50bil coming from a United Arab Emirates fund attracted by state-sponsored electricity in France.
The summit, which gathered high-level executives at the Versailles palace yesterday for a dinner with the president, comes as the French economy continues to feel the shock of the Iran war.
Gross domestic product fell 0.1% in the three months through March, the first quarterly contraction since the pandemic.
His advisers said that Macron will seek to pitch France as a predictable investment haven and touted his pro-business policies, including cuts in corporate taxes and removing red tape for companies willing to manufacture goods in France.
It may be a hard sell, however, as the outcome of France’s 2027 election is highly unpredictable.
Polls suggest the far-right candidate, be it Marine Le Pen or Jordan Bardella, is best placed to be in the runoff, and their party, the National Rally, has never been in power, raising the question of whether the “Choose France” brand will survive Macron.
Companies are cautious about investing in the face of global geopolitical uncertainties, energy inflation, trade wars and struggling economic growth.
And with peace talks failing so far to resolve the conflict in the Middle East, doubts are growing over the French government’s ability to meet its target to narrow this year budget shortfall to 5% of output from 5.1% in 2025.
Still, the French officials contend that the country remains attractive, especially in comparison with the unpredictability of the United States, as a gateway to Europe with a qualified workforce.
Last month, a survey by EY showed that France maintained its lead over major European rivals in an annual ranking of destinations for foreign direct investment for the seventh year.
France drew 852 projects from outside sources in 2025, the consultancy firm said. While that’s down from 2024, it still leaves France ahead of the United Kingdom, which won 730 projects, and Germany’s 548.
According to Macron, who can’t legally run for a third consecutive term next year, companies had so far invested €87bil since he first organised a Choose France summit, in 2018. — Bloomberg
