Choose France: investments expected in Occitanie, announces the Elysée

This is the seventh edition of this summit of international investors around Emmanuel Macron. MAXPPP

180 foreign business leaders gathered this Monday around Emmanuel Macron at the Palace of Versailles to announce significant investments, including 1.2 billion euros from Amazon. The Swiss company OLCIM will inject money into its units in Aude and Haute-Garonne.

The 2024 edition of the Choose France summit will be an opportunity to announce a record amount of investments on French soil, the Élysée announced on Sunday, which notably cited Amazon among the groups concerned. The seventh edition of the Choose France summit will bring together some 180 foreign business leaders at the Palace of Versailles on Monday, in the presence of President Emmanuel Macron.

3 000 jobs created by Amazon

The American giant Amazon will invest 1.2 billion euros and create 3,000 jobs on permanent contracts, welcomed the Presidency of the Republic, which also mentioned creations jobs at Accenture in the artificial intelligence sector. The record of 13 billion euros for the 2023 edition of Choose France should be beaten, according to the Élysée.

In the pharmaceutical industry, GlaxoSmithKline is expected to announce projects, which will join those of several of its competitors. The American group Pfizer has announced an investment of 500 million euros over five years in order to "strengthen the research and development (R& nbsp;& D) in France […] in fields such as oncology and hematology, as well as pharmaceutical production in France" . The Swedish-British group AstraZeneca has confirmed an investment of 365 million euros "to support growth and environmental transition" from its Dunkirk site.

Banking and finance meet

Morgan Stanley, First Abu Dhabi Bank and Zenith Bank of Nigeria will open new branches in Paris, synonymous with job creation, for his part announced the Minister of Economy and Finances, Bruno Le Maire.

Enough to help Paris establish its reputation as a leading financial hub. According to the Z/Yen survey published in March, Paris comes fourth in the world, with New York, London and Frankfurt making up the top three. The inauguration on Monday of the Morgan Stanley European campus in the 8th arrondissement of the French capital should, according to him, create around a hundred jobs.

Swiss investments in Occitanie

Occitanie should benefit from part of the 60 million euros; of investment by OLCIM (Switzerland) in France in favor of the decarbonization of its operations, indicated the Elysée at Midi Libre. This investment should enable the creation of 40 jobs and a reduction of 120,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions thanks to the commissioning between 2025 and 2026 of several industrial platforms, particularly in the Pays de Loire region for the Saint-Pierre-la-Cour factory (Mayenne) and in Occitanie for the Martres-Tolosane (Haute-Garonne) and Port-la factories -New (Aude).

According to La Dépêche, Canadian company Paper Excellence is expected to announce that nearly 40 M€ will be dedicated, by 2026, to the continued effort to decarbonize its paper pulp production sites, Fiber Excellence Provence in les Bouches-du-Rhône and Fiber Excellence Saint-Gaudens in Haute-Garonne.

On its Provence site Fiber Excellence plans to invest 150 M€ in a new innovative production line for "fluff" paper pulp, which in 2027 will make it possible to locally supply French manufacturers of absorbent products, some of whom are forced today to’ rsquo;import their paper pulp.

The German EnBW, a European energy producer and supplier pursuing its objective of carbon neutrality, should invest by the end of 2026, via its subsidiary Valeco 230 M€ for the construction of renewable energy production plants, in particular at Barre (Tarn) and Sémide (Ardennes).

A pilot CO2 capture platform (open-innovation) will be dedicated to improving the technologies currently being developed in this area, while several other platforms will focus on the preparation of CO2 waste. BTP and biomass to promote them in the cement process.

An electric aircraft assembly plant

Bruno Le Maire also revealed a project by the KL1 group, based in Switzerland, consisting of building a nickel refining plant in the towns of Blanquefort and Parempuyre, in New Aquitaine. Called "Electro mobility materials Europe", the investment of 300 million euros should make it possible to create 200 jobs with the start of activity expected in 2027.< /p>

The start-up Lilium, based in Germany, plans to install in France an assembly plant for an electric vertical take-off aircraft as well as a second structure specialized in battery reconditioning. The total investment is estimated at 400 million euros with 850 jobs at stake according to Bercy, which mentions several identified sites, "notably in Nouvelle-Aquitaine".

Baptized in this Olympic year "France, land of champions", the 2024 edition of Choose France will begin Monday with a lunch in the presence of the Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, and the European Commissioner for the Internal Market, Thierry Breton. Among the 180 foreign business leaders invited, a third are new and half come from countries outside the European Union, according to the Élysée. Around sixty French bosses will also be there. "France remains for the fifth consecutive year the most attractive country in Europe and welcomes extremely significant investments, including in a context of general macroeconomic slowdown", welcomed the Presidency of the Republic.