Foreign investments in France: the state plays caution

Requests for foreign investment in France in the strategic sectors have never been so high. A record was even broken last year.

Through the system for the control of investment authorization requests, or business buyouts by foreign operators, the Ministry of Economy and Finance draws up. Concretely, nearly 400 authorization requests were filed last year, a hundred more than in 2023. In total, only 182 green lights were given. Finally, that is relatively little, the French authorities want to be very vigilant. It is caution at all floors.

The system implemented by the French State requires foreign investors to request prior authorization before any control or participation, even a minority, in sensitive tricolor companies, falling under strategic fields (defense, health, energy, etc.). The objective is to protect certain sides of our economy in the name of sovereignty, and to avoid new controversies such as that around the sale of doliprane by Sanofi to Americans last spring, or those of Alstom, General Electric or Nokia in other not so distant times.

Two-thirds (65%) of foreign investor requests to get their hands on French assets come from non-members of the European Union. These requests come mainly from the United States, the United Kingdom and Switzerland. Without citing names, the report of the Ministry of the Economy and Finance indicates that six foreign investments have been refused in the past three years because it has been impossible to set the conditions likely to guarantee the preservation of national interests.

How to explain the attraction of foreign investors for French companies? France has industrial nuggets and, as the Director of the Treasury explains, Bertrand Dumont, quoted in the Ministry report, paradoxically, weak economic growth also creates opportunities. Added to increased competition in certain markets and the conditions of financing difficult, this weak growth makes companies more fragile and more vulnerable to acquisitions. They have become easier prey. In the period of strong geopolitical tensions, it is therefore necessary to particularly strengthen our vigilance on industrial heritage.