investment

Following President Emmanuel Macron's pledge to raise 5 billion euros from private-sector investors to help startup businesses flourish in France, the major state investment arm, the Caisse des Dépôts has announced a 100 million-euro programme to help small caps in conjunction with the creation by Euronext of a new index for small tech firms.

With elections afoot in both their countries, French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Theresa May each claim to lead the world's fifth-largest economic power, and the plain facts demonstrate that the two economies have very similar performance in a number of areas.   

Terms of deal are so favourable that in 15 years Max-Hervé George could be worth more than Aviva France, the firm which has to honour it.

Since 1999, France has a more impressive record on economic growth, productivity and financial sector stability than many eurozone peers.

After meeting in Berlin, French and German economy and finance ministers pledged to present public investment plans in December.

While French investors reduce their stakes in CAC 40, US investors raised their holdings by 1.9 billion dollars in the first six months of 2014.

The French President, visiting the troubled ArcelorMittal plant of Florange, said he would return each year to ensure promised investment arrives.

Qatar now owns an estimated 6.3bln euros-worth of property in France, encouraged by a controversial deal that offered it tax-free profits from sales.

Beleaguered president outlines ten-year programme of investment in digital and other new technologies, alternative energy, health and infrastructure.

French president François Hollande says he wants very high-speed internet to reach every household in the country by 2023.

France is to allow Qatar to invest millions of euros to help business creation in depressed suburbs, in a controversial move first floated a year ago.

Magistrates investigating a suspected gigantic web of corruption spun around the financial affairs of L’Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt on Wednesday placed a lawyer in charge of her wealth investments under formal investigation for taking advantage of the 89 year-old matriarch’s diminished mental faculties. Pascal Wilhelm, appointed as a legal protector of Bettencourt’s financial interests, is the second of her wealth managers to be suspected of corruption. The case notably involves an investment he organised of 143 million euros of the matriarch’s private fortune in a company owned by reality TV show and online gambling entrepreneur Stéphane Courbit, which Bettencourt cannot remember making. Michel Deléan reports.