Monday, November 17, 2025 marks a turning point in French economic strategy. For the first time since its creation in 2018, the Choose France Summit is not aimed at foreign investors but is exclusively dedicated to French companies that choose to invest in their own territory.
At the Maison de la Chimie in Paris, nearly 200 business leaders announced 30.4 billion euros in investments spread over 151 projects. A strategic shift that takes place in a tense geopolitical context, where France is trying to regain control of its industrial destiny in the face of the hegemony of global technological giants.
This France edition summit comes at a pivotal moment. The calendar owes nothing to chance: it comes at a time when the budget is being debated in the National Assembly and when deputies have adopted a series of measures increasing corporate taxation. Employers' organizations expressed their “immense concern” in the face of 53 billion euros in tax increases, while the dynamic reindustrialization that began in 2022 seems to be continuously down.
However, for the sixth year in a row, France remains the most attractive European country for foreign investments. This paradox raises questions: how to maintain this attractiveness while increasing compulsory levies? The government's response involves the valorization of national successes in strategic sectors such as ecological transition, artificial intelligence and digital technology.
The real challenge of this domestic version of Choose France is outlined below: while American Giants are investing colossal amounts in AI infrastructure, can France really claim technological independence? In 2025, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Meta committed approximately $380 billion to data centers and AI infrastructure. Faced with these dizzying amounts, the 30.4 billion euros announced on Monday seem like a drop in the ocean of the global race for artificial intelligence.
The GAFAM strategy reveals a logic of domination by infrastructure. Microsoft is investing $80 billion in data centers optimized for AI in fiscal year 2025, while Amazon is forecasting $100 billion in 2025, far surpassing Microsoft and Google. These massive investments aim to control the entire value chain: from chips to AI models, to cloud computing.
The Choose France Summit in May 2025 illustrated this dynamic with three major investments in AI totaling more than 20 billion euros, in particular by Brookfield and MGX in partnership with Nvidia and Mistral. But who really controls these infrastructures? The example of Mistral AI, presented as the French champion of AI, reveals a worrying technological dependence: its founders all come from Google and Meta, and the company connected on contracts with Microsoft for its development.
The French edition of Choose France highlights three economic models that are shaping our time, embodied by iconic companies that are absent or indirectly present in the discussions.
LVMH, world leader in luxury, illustrates the resilience of an economic model based on know-how and creativity. The group plans to recruit 16,000 people in France in 2025, showing that there are still sectors where European excellence resists global competition. LVMH embodies a heritage capitalism, rooted territorially, where the France brand remains a major strategic asset.
Tesla represents the disruptive model of technological innovation. Although Elon Musk expressed confidence in significant investments in France in 2023, Tesla is spending several billion dollars a year on AI, in particular in the purchase of Nvidia GPUs to improve its autonomous driving. The car manufacturer illustrates the convergence between traditional industry and the digital revolution, where the vehicle becomes a computer on wheels.
Nvidia, absent from the French summit but omnipresent in the AI ecosystem, embodies the new digital infrastructure economy. Nvidia is recording a 240% increase in its capitalization, fuelled by the massive demand for its specialized AI processors. The company is no longer just selling chips, but the nervous system of the global digital economy.
The Choose France France Edition France summit raises a fundamental question about our relationship to globalization. The massive investments of American cloud providers during the 2024 summit raised the question of whether technological sovereignty and foreign investments in cloud computing can be combined. This tension reveals a dilemma: is economic independence still possible in the age of technological interdependence?
The 30.4 billion investments announced on Monday are part of a defensive logic to preserve the French industrial fabric. But can this strategy be enough in the face of the oligopolistic concentration of the technology sector? When Amazon, Microsoft, and Google alone combine more than $300 billion in annual investments in AI, is the very notion of “national champion” becoming obsolete?
The artificial intelligence sector reveals a disturbing reality: digital ecosystems know no borders, and sovereignty now involves less territorial control than through mastering technological standards. Can France really develop a credible alternative to GAFAM, or should it accept a form of digital vassalage tempered by a few niches of excellence?
The evolution of e-commerce crystallizes these tensions. Amazon dominates the European market with an unparalleled logistical and technological infrastructure, the result of massive investments in automation and AI. Despite their efforts, French platforms are struggling to compete in the field of technological innovation. The French consumer, although attached to the discourse on sovereignty, remains loyal to American platforms for their efficiency and price.
This collective schizophrenia reveals an uncomfortable truth: we want economic sovereignty but refuse to pay the price. Choose France Édition France celebrates companies that invest in France, but these same companies must buy their servers from AWS, their chips from Nvidia, and their AI solutions from Microsoft or Google.
The summit on Monday finally questions our very conception of economic success. Is it the ability to generate unicorns valued at several billion? The creation of sustainable and qualified jobs? Critical infrastructure control? The preservation of artisanal know-how as in luxury?
The 9 billion euros in new projects announced are spread over various sectors such as tourism, digital technology, health and transport. This diversification testifies to a certain maturity: rather than focusing everything on tech, France cultivates several centers of excellence. LVMH and luxury, aeronautics with Airbus, pharmaceutical health, nuclear energy... all sectors where French expertise remains recognized worldwide.
But will this strategy of niches of excellence suffice in a world where American and Chinese digital platforms are increasingly structuring economic exchanges? Economic history teaches us that control of critical infrastructure determines who captures value. But in the digital economy, these infrastructures are clouds, chips, and AI algorithms, three areas dominated by a handful of American companies.
Choose France Édition France should not be just a communication operation. It should mark the beginning of a strategic reflection on our economic model. How to finance innovation without burdening businesses with taxation? How to attract talent in a context of heightened global competition? How can we preserve our industrial fabric while accepting the need to cooperate with foreign giants?
The answer cannot be purely national. The European scale is becoming essential for weighing up against American and Chinese mastodons. But the European Union is struggling to define a coherent industrial strategy, with each country defending its national champions.
This summit of November 17, 2025 may go down in history as a pivotal moment: when France tried to regain control of its economic destiny, at a time when the rules of the game were already written elsewhere. Between political volunteerism and economic realism, between declared sovereignty and structural dependencies, the future will tell us whether these 30.4 billion will have been enough to change history... or if they will have been nothing but a swan song before the inevitable integration into a global digital order dominated by a few technological giants.
