France has unveiled a sweeping plan to revive its flagging industrial prowess that underscores efforts by the Socialist government to reconcile its interventionist instincts with a more pro-business approach, reports The Financial Times.
In a high profile announcement at the Elysée Palace, President François Hollande laid out a 10-year industrial policy based on supporting no fewer than 34 sectors, spanning new technologies in areas ranging from renewable energy to robotics and medical biotech.
But Mr Hollande was at pains to stress that the plan was different from great industrial projects championed by French leaders in the past.
“This is not about going back to the grand plans of the 1960s and 1970s. Those times are over,” he told the audience, which included a number of France’s top executives. “Our policy is neither liberal nor dirigiste, it is not Rhinelandish or Anglo-Saxon. It is French, pragmatic.”
He said the aim was to reverse a trend in which France has lost 750,000 manufacturing jobs over the past decade, slipped from a trade surplus to a heavy deficit and lost ground to neighbouring competitors.
Arnaud Montebourg, industry minister. said in an interview with Le Monde newspaper that industry’s share of national output had fallen to 11 per cent, less than in Germany, Italy, Spain – and even the UK.
The plan was put together by Mr Montebourg, a fiery leftwinger who has battled publicly with prominent industrialists such as Lakshmi Mittal , the steel magnate, over job cuts, campaigned for more protection of European companies and is driving a “Made in France” campaign that aims to bring home jobs lost abroad.
Read more of this report from The Financial Times.