Where should France draw the balance between stimulating international trade and investment and protecting French jobs?
France is not the most vocal when it comes to its openness, but it has one of the most open economies in the world. France is the country that receives the second highest volume of foreign direct investment in the world. It comes way before Germany, very shortly ahead of the UK, and second only after the US in 2008. Also, about forty four percent of the market capitalization of the forty largest companies listed on the CAC 40 is foreign owned, so nearly half of the major industrial and service base is owned by non-French capital. If you look at the volume of trade measured by import and export, again we rank in the top two in Europe. While we are front page news when we say “protect yoghurt” or “secure the shareholding of Arcelor and do not give up to Mittal”, those issues are almost incidental compared to the major basic trends and numbers about the French economy. Just another example, foreign direct investment and sovereign funds are either welcomed or looked at with a bit of suspic
