France is an open economy to foreign capital. Economic patriotism is part of the dispersed intellectual fog, but it has no real basis or empirical evidence of its effectiveness.
It’s as if one claimed that it would be better to return to traveling by horse to avoid the cost of gasoline.
In fact, it’s chatter, a pure exercise in cheap propaganda.
And these few figures clearly show it…
962: in 2015, this was the number of foreign investments recorded. The number is slightly down, by 5% compared to 2014; but the number of jobs increased by 27% in one year. As such, 33,682 positions were created or preserved, according to the Business France report.
20,000 foreign companies are present in France. These groups (or subsidiaries) currently employ 13% of the salaried workforce in France. The United States remains the leading foreign investor in France, accounting for more than 440,000 direct jobs and 2 million indirect jobs.
According to Insee, foreign companies contribute 19% of the national economy’s turnover. They also account for 32% of exports made from France and 28% of Research and Development expenditures.
3rd: France ranks behind Great Britain and Germany in welcoming foreign investments that create jobs (which therefore do not account for pure financial operations), according to the EY barometer. Just a few years ago, it was in second place on the podium.
340: Île-de-France attracted fewer foreign investment projects last year than in 2014 (when this figure reached 368). But the jobs expected to be created or maintained within three years thanks to these investments have doubled, going from 5,032 in 2014 to 9,579 in 2015, according to figures published a few days ago by Paris Region Enterprises—the region’s economic development agency.
43.5%: this is the share of the stock market capitalization of CAC 40 companies owned by non-residents, according to the latest data from the Banque de France. At the end of 2014, non-residents held 491 billion euros in shares of French CAC 40 companies, out of a total market capitalization of 1,084 billion euros.
Eurozone countries continue to be the main holders of CAC 40 companies. However, over the past five years, their share in non-resident ownership has diminished in favor of the United States and the United Kingdom.
64%: this is the proportion of French debt held by non-residents, according to the latest figures from the Agence France Trésor. This could involve institutional investors (pension funds, insurers), sovereign wealth funds, banks… In 1993, this figure barely exceeded 30%.
