France working on strategy – competition for meta?

France takes a first step towards the Metaverse. Like from one press release of the Ministry of Economics, the country wants to develop its own strategy for the digital world. The Ministry published a questionnairein which citizens, companies, associations and research institutes are expected to communicate their expectations for a “French standard” metaverse by May 2nd.

The Secretary of State for Digital Transformation and Telecommunications, Jean-Noël Barrot, sees “strong technological and economic promises for the future” in the Metaverse. There are no concrete pilot projects yet. In general, however, the government around President Emmanuel Macron wants to offer “alternatives” to the existing concepts of the “international giants”.

It’s an indirect challenge to meta. Mark Zuckerberg’s Internet company is considered one of the pioneers in the development of a digital world, which is why it even gave itself a new name. So far, however, the balance has been rather modest, also because the hype surrounding virtual worlds is fading more and more. Meta is trying to counteract this and is now relying on artificial intelligence to advance the prestige project “Metaverse”.

France wants to become a start-up country

France’s involvement with the Metaverse nonetheless fits into the overall strategy. Emmanuel Macron wants to shape the country into a “start-up nation”. Since then, there have been licenses en masse for the crypto industry. Crypto exchange Crypto.com and USDC publisher Circle recently announced the opening of their European headquarters in Paris, which is likely to become even more relevant with the upcoming MiCA regulation. The regulation sets uniform regulatory standards for the crypto sector, compliance with which is monitored by the Paris-based supervisory authorities EBA and ESMA, among others.