The State paid nearly 1.6 billion euros in subsidies to these projects, which made it possible to generate some 5.4 billion euros in productive investments in these companies.
Recycling of metals, agri-food ingredients, active ingredients of medicines or semiconductors: the economic recovery plan launched in September 2020 has made it possible to support 782 projects for the relocation or modernization of industrial companies in France, announced the Ministry of Industry on Thursday.
Read alsoReindustrialization of France: “Should we believe the promises of recovery from the candidates?”
After the Covid epidemic which highlighted the deindustrialization at work in France for several decades, and revealed its dependence in certain critical areas such as medicines, these projects made it possible to “create or strengthen 100,000 jobs“according to Bercy. They were selected in three different tenders, of which the latest wave of 72 winning companies was announced by the Ministry of Industry on Thursday.
In total, the State paid nearly 1.6 billion euros in subsidies to these 782 projects, which made it possible to generate some 5.4 billion euros in productive investments in these companies. Aid has thus been granted to many small and medium-sized enterprises or start-ups, ranging from a flour mill in Guyana which plans to create around twenty jobs to a start-up from CEA-Léti in Isère, which develops DNA extraction chips for the food industry to detect salmonellosis or listeria. The company will thus create 26 jobs.
Large groups have also been helped, such as the steelmaker ArcelorMittal to modernize a workshop, or Orano for the creation of an industrial tool of permanent magnets.
One in three companies helped
The food industry receives 132 million euros for 97 projects. Health benefits from 829 million euros for some 187 projects, 42 of which aim to relocate production capacity of active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) to France. Some 141 million euros were granted for 107 electronics projects. Thus the Linxens company based in Mantes-la-Jolie receives aid to create a workshop dedicated to the assembly of biometric sensors intended for bank cards.
No less than 120 projects receive 317 million euros in aid in sectors providing essential inputs to industry (metals, materials, chemicals and recycling), while the 5G sector receives 98 million euros. In total, one out of three industrial companies with more than five employees wasaccompaniedin one form or another, indicated the Minister Delegate for Industry, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, during her hearing to review the five-year term before the National Assembly last week.
According to her, France is the only country to have finished deploying its recovery plan in Europe, “but also to have had this rate of achievement of companies“. “To give an idea of comparison, it is seven times what was achieved under the Sarkozy mandate between 2008 and 2011” according to her. However, “we are not going to prance with just 11% of GDP in industryadmitted the minister.
France lost one million industrial jobs between 2000 and 2016.Entire sections of our industry have been relocated, entire territories have found themselves abandonedrecalled Ms. Pannier-Runacher. “In 2021, as in 2017, 2018, and 2019, we recreated net industrial employment in our territories, this had not happened since 2000” did she say.
Read alsoBruno Le Maire links “national prosperity” to reindustrialization
“We are just saying that in four years, we have shown that we are capable of stopping the industrial bleeding, the subject now is to build the reboundshe added. In particular, she acknowledged a “enormous work to be continued on the issue of automation and digitization of production chains», as well as on the construction of a machine tool industry.
“The truth dictates that we still have players of modest size, sometimes very relevant, very specialized, but of modest size, not always well known to the French and that there is a lot of structuring work to be donein this area, she said.