Reading Olivier Lluansi's report is not likely to provoke explosions of joy at the treasury or the president's office. Charged by the Ministry of the Economy to determine the future of industrial policies in France in the autumn of 2023, the former industry adviser to President François Hollande is due to submit his report in the next few days. It is likely to temper, or even douse, the government's hopes for reindustrialization.

The government, backed by President Macron, has set himself a highly ambitious goal: To raise the share of industry from 10% to 15% of France's gross domestic product (GDP) by 2035, in order to catch up with the European average. "Impossible," said Lluansi, who has predicted a maximum possible increase of 2% to 3% of GDP in a decade, "which would already be remarkable," he said.

The expert has identified two major obstacles to fulfilling the government's wish: energy and manpower. "While waiting for new nuclear power plants to come on stream, France will not have enough decarbonized energy to gain 5 GDP points in 10 years, nor will it have enough trained manpower," he said. Nearly 60,000 French industrial positions remain unfilled.

But the Lluansi scenario at 12% or 13% of GDP would already deliver unprecedented performance: "The manufacturing trade balance, currently in deficit by €60 billion, would become positive again, and 50,000 new industrial jobs would be created every year," he said. Following on from the 130,000 jobs created in industry since 2017, the momentum would be impressive.

However, according to a partner at Strategy&, PwC's strategy advise outfit, three conditions are essential. The first is to reconfigure the current reindustrialization policy to include all industries, supported by numerous SMEs in the regions, and not just high-tech.

The second is to encourage public procurement to buy French. "With public procurement, we could buy €15 billion a year more manufacturing goods," he said. But Brussels would have to agree.

Finally, such a scheme is expensive: €200 billion over 10 years, Lluansi has calculated. "That's 3% of the €6 trillion in French savings," said the expert, who has urged the government to channel this windfall, the only way, he believes, to counter competing US or Chinese investment programs.

So many imperatives are not easy for the government to meet, especially in times of severe budgetary chill, even if Bercy has sworn that industrial investments will not be affected by the savings decided for 2024 and 2025. Hardly a week goes by without Lluansi highlighting one of the pillars of the reindustrialization policy: a battle plan for solar and photovoltaic energy, a campaign for the development of heat pumps, measures to free up industrial land or facilitate the reintroduction of mining in France, etc.

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