The French Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire welcomed Monday the "
European awakening
" in terms of public aid for technological innovation, already widely used in China and the United States.
“
I am delighted that there is a European awakening, a real awareness
,” declared Bruno Le Maire, at the opening of a European conference in Paris on digital sovereignty.
Read alsoThe government organizes a European conference on digital sovereignty
"
For decades, out of pure dogmatism, we prevented ourselves from granting public aid to innovative industrial projects, while China did it, the United States did
it," said the minister.
The European Commission is due to present its “ Chips Act
” in Brussels on Tuesday
, a plan which should allow in particular to grant very significant public aid for the construction of semiconductor manufacturing plants.
Bruno Le Maire cited the "
Chips act
" as an example of this European "
awakening
", and also mentioned the "
important project of common European interest
" (IPCEI) on the cloud (dematerialized computing) being set up.
"
France will put 300 million euros of public money
" on this project, in which eleven European states are participating, he insisted.
France is organizing a European conference on digital sovereignty on Monday and Tuesday.
Create with public money a "
fund of funds
"
Several European commissioners and ministers are taking part in this event, during which experts and representatives of American (Microsoft) or European digital companies will also speak.
On Tuesday, the conference will focus more particularly on ways to better support fast-growing start-ups – “
scale-ups
”, in the jargon of digital start-ups – to help them become European or global giants.
France proposes to its partners to create with public money a "
fund of funds
", which could participate, jointly with the private sector, in specialized European funds, capable of betting several tens of millions of euros, even a hundred, on a single company.
The goal is to reach “
10, 20 funds
” of one billion euros specializing in “
scale-ups
”, noted Bruno Le Maire on Monday morning.
The details of this initiative are to be unveiled on Tuesday.
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“
Sovereignty today is technological sovereignty
,” insisted the Minister of the Economy.
"
The European technological awakening will guarantee our mastery of innovations, guarantee our technological sovereignty, and guarantee the political sovereignty that we all aspire to between China and the United States
," he added.
