Five key takeaways from my day at Choose France

Along with Rich Lesser, our CEO, I was particularly honored to take part in the Choose France Summit at the Palace of Versailles, on Monday 28th June. The brainchild of President Emmanuel Macron, the Summit is a forum of 150+ global business and public sector leaders representing various industries and geographies. The 4th edition of the Choose France summit was aimed at showcasing Europe and France's attractiveness for foreign investors and reflecting on the lessons of the COVID crisis.

For the second year in a row, BCG collaborated with the Summit as an exclusive knowledge partner.

Our BCG Paris team brought its expertise to the table and helped shape the forum’s agenda. Leveraging 30+ top CEO interviews, Camille Egloff, Antoine Gourévitch and Olivier Scalabre, Managing Directors and Senior Partners at BCG Paris, offer up their thoughts on three key topics, that we are delighted to share with you here:

• ?Industry in Europe grows more resilient moderated by Olivier Scalabre
• ?Riding the deep tech wave moderated by Antoine Gourévitch
• New logistics: greener, faster, stronger moderated by Camille Egloff

In addition to these workshops, I would also like to highlight five key learnings from this extremely productive day :

1. ?Optimism about a quick recovery is the norm among leaders from both the public and private sectors. The massive intervention of public authorities, which has made it possible to maintain industrial and human capacity, was highly commended.
2. Sustainability and digital – as CEO priorities - have been strengthened by the COVID period. Companies are questioning their footprint/supply chain/resilience, which is leading them to rethink their transition roadmaps. It is now important to use recovery plans as levers to accelerate sustainable and digital transitions.
3. The European scale is the right scale. Europe must form one single market (and not 27 separate markets with 27 different sets of regulations). The summit reflects the dynamic of regionalization but major challenges still lie ahead, especially in terms of simplifying administrative processes and accelerating the transformation of public administration. If our continent is a rightful champion of B2B digital and sustainability, the window of opportunity is now, and we must take great care not to miss it.
4. Over the past four years, France has really succeeded in making itself more attractive for investment, strengthened its ties within Europe, and made major commitments to further progress.
5. President Macron nonetheless urges caution on the following points :

• To ensure a durable recovery, public money must be spent efficiently. Targeted and timely spending is key.
• We have observed a widening of inequalities both in terms of health and economic recovery. However, stability can only be reestablished if the global situation improves. There is a strong need for multilateralism.

As Rich pointed out in Le Figaro last Saturday, “there have been major efforts aimed at reinforcing attractiveness during Emmanuel Macron’s presidency and establishing the #ChooseFrance summit is a positive sign in and of itself. On sustainability, Europe is leading the in-depth transformation. It has assets to put forward and it is going to have to invest for a more virtuous and sustainable growth.”