French President Emmanuel Macron will urge a visiting group of top Silicon Valley venture capitalists this week to invest in the nation’s start-ups while calling on them not to “steal” the best creations, Reuters reports..
The discreet event, not mentioned in Macron’s official schedule, comes at a tough time for the French leader after rioters looted and ransacked boutiques and businesses in central Paris, chaotic images beamed around the world.
Executives from some of the biggest names in U.S. tech funding, including Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital and General Atlantic, are among the 40 expected in Paris on Wednesday and Thursday for a tour of the French startup scene.
The two-day roadshow includes presentations from what sources called tech ‘superstars’ already investing in France as well as visits to hubs such as the Station F tech incubator in eastern Paris.
But instead of simply urging them to invest in France, Macron, who is scheduled to host the investors at the Elysee palace on Thursday evening, will also tell the U.S. funds to help French businesses to flourish rather than pushing the best French entrepreneurs to move to the United States.
“Today, many French companies raise money in the U.S., and the usual reflex of U.S venture capitalists is to tell them: ‘come to the United States then’,” a source at Macron’s office told Reuters.
“We will tell them: it’s an ecosystem, your best interest is to do like in Britain and Israel: invest here and don’t move everything (to the U.S.),” the source said.
The event was scheduled before the nationwide protests that turned the French capital into a battle zone and the format of Macron’s appearance has yet to be finalised, sources said.
With his authority challenged by the “yellow vest” protesters, who sprawled anti-capitalist slogans on banks and luxury boutiques on Saturday, Macron has his work cut out to counter the damage done to France’s image.