France keeps its leading position for foreign investments in Europe

For more than 20 years, the audit and advisory firm EY has been “observing the flows and mechanisms of international relocations in order to support its clients in their location projects and contribute to the development of reforms that encourage investment”. Every year, EY surveys in this goal several thousand managers of foreign businesses of all scales and sectors to list their investments and investment projects in Europe. The main question this year was to understand how the attractiveness of France and Europe had trended “during a period of high political and economic turmoil, caught between the United States and China”.

France leading country in foreign investments in Europe

This year, Europe is found “in a deficit of competitiveness, as well as being faced with an unstable environment”. Foreign investments in Europe “have decreased for the second consecutive year and are now at their lowest in 9 years”: 5,383 projects have been announced in Europe in 2024, a 5% decrease compared to 2023.

However, EY adds, “despite investment and employment clearly staggering, France kept its position in 2024”. For the 6th consecutive year, it stays the country receiving the highest number of international investments in 2024, a performance slightly mitigated by a 3rd position in number of jobs. Job creations generated by these projects have indeed plummeted (-27%) between 2023 and 2024, which, according to EY, is “a sign of cautiousness, of costs and time need for implementations, which are challenges that were already highlighted in our previous barometers”.

Over 1000 projects in France, and especially in sectors of excellence

Even though the number of implementation projects and foreign extensions has receded by 14% in 2024, France is still the first most attractive country in Europe. Its two main competitors, the United Kingdom and Germany, register a similar receding trend. In the rest of Europe, EY identifies a sharp increase of projects in South countries (such as Spain), with a stability of investments in Central Europe, which “contrasts with the overall slowdown of West Europe countries”.

With a total of 1,025 projects, France excels in several industries. More specifically:

• with 104 projects listed in Research and Development, France strengthens its position as first European destination for innovative investments. Business France notes indeed that France “particularly stands out in artificial Intelligence and quantum research, for which the country reaches the first European position with 41 projects of foreign origin received, ahead of the United Kingdom (27 projects) and Spain (15 projects)”. And according to EY, in artificial intelligence “France stands out now as a major attraction hub in Europe”;
• with 415 projects in industrial investment, France has pulled over 25% of foreign manufacturing projects in Europe, “ahead of Turkey (227 investments) and the United Kingdom (183)”. According to Business France, this position “confirms France as a leading host country for industry in Europe, thanks among others to the acceleration of processes, the strengthening of available skills and the development of strategic industries”.

The Choose France Summit in sight

On a strictly regional level, the EY barometer shows that foreign companies are setting up operations all over France (75% outside the Paris Region), “roof that the local offer is attractive beyond the major cities and their conurbations”.

For Business France too, this figure confirms “the attractiveness of the regions in all their diversity”, a diversity “supported by solid industrial ecosystems, appropriate infrastructures and the involvement of local players”. More broadly, it also illustrates “France’s ability to offer competitive local location solutions, thereby contributing to more balanced economic development between regions”.

It is against this dynamic backdrop that the 8th Choose France Summit, organised under the patronage of the French President, will take place from 19 to 21 May at the Château de Versailles. This summit, which has become the meeting place for France’s attractiveness, is designed to attract new foreign investors to France. More than 200 CEOs are expected to attend, with the aim of presenting to the heads of major international groups “the government’s progress and facilitating investment commitments in France”.