Tribune. The action of Emmanuel Macron, since 2015 and his appointment as Minister of the Economy, has been crossed by one constant: that of the importance given to innovation and entrepreneurship, and more broadly to those who embody it. From the trip in 2015 to CES, the new technologies exhibition in Las Vegas, to the France 2030 investment plan through the incarnation of French Tech, the presentation of French strategies for artificial intelligence, quantum and cybersecurity , or even the many exchanges with the new generation of entrepreneurs, the will of the President of the Republic to make the renewal of the French economy a major element of its economic identity will have withstood the difficulties of the five-year term and the easy caricatures of the start -up nation. This story, more relevant than ever, is a fight that we must carry.
This common thread stems first of all from a pragmatic observation: that of global competition, where the ability to innovate conditions economic success. And in this matter, the observation is cruel for Europe and France: almost all of the companies that today dominate the technological and economic world are American or Chinese.
These companies are not only foreign, they are often “young”: of the top ten world capitalisations, eight are tech companies, and six did not exist twenty-five years ago. The groups that make up the CAC 40 are, on average, more than 100 years old on average. This last fact says everything that we were, and all that we are no longer. It is indeed the Clément Ader, Marie and Pierre Curie, Auguste and Louis Lumière, Louis Pasteur, Louis Peugeot who have made the recent prosperity of our country. It is this exceptional wave of innovations of the XIXe century – and, to a lesser extent, its replica of the years 1945-1960 (aerospace, nuclear, etc.) – which laid the foundations for France’s technological and economic influence and its social model. These historical forces – aeronautics, luxury goods, chemicals – also say what we missed: an entrepreneurial fabric that does not renew itself is a fabric that is partly doomed.
From one fight to another
The challenge of French Tech, carried since 2015 by Emmanuel Macron, is first of all this: to reconnect with French genius, that of the women and men who have carried out research, French companies and inventions. This genius had not disappeared: France is still today the 2e countries with the number of Fields mathematics medals, and the quality of French researchers and engineers is recognized worldwide. But we happily export these talents, failing to offer them the right context for their development. In this regard, the over-representation of the French among the most senior officials of artificial intelligence at Facebook, Google, Amazon, Netflix says more than any statistic. However controversial they may have been, the introduction of the “flat tax”, the reform of the ISF or the reform of the labor market will have made it possible: to preserve in France the women and men without whom our collective future cannot be ‘does not exist, but these measures will also have allowed the creation of hundreds of thousands of jobs, the emergence of new technological champions, to gain seven places in the world ranking of innovation established by the World Intellectual Property Organization.
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