The list of “flagships” of French industry that have passed under a foreign flag in recent years is long. Sanofi’s sale of 50% of its consumer health entity, Opella, which notably markets Doliprane, to the US investment fund CD&R, brings back bad memories. All political groups, from the extreme right to the left, denounce this sale as a new symbol of the loss of economic and industrial sovereignty of France, especially in health matters.
The passage of Opella under US control weakens the position of the French executive and its promise, since the Covid-19 crisis in 2020, that France will no longer depend on foreigners for supplies in several strategic sectors, particularly healthcare. The concern is such that Emmanuel Macron wanted to reassure, on Monday, October 14, from the Paris Motor Show, declaring that despite the issue of “capital property” by Sanofi “The government has the instruments to ensure that France is protected”.
Since 2005, the IEF decree (for “foreign investments in France”) regulates foreign investments subject to prior government authorization. In addition to security and defense, this system was expanded in 2014 to other strategic industrial sectors, such as energy, transportation or health. In 2022, the State, for example, decided to strengthen its control over the stake in the company Aubert & Duval – which its owner, the Eramet group, wanted to sell – which supplies high-performance steels necessary for nuclear submarines and the oil industry. . Dassault Rafale. A year later, the company was bought by Airbus and Safran to remain under the French flag.
According to the latest annual report of the General Directorate of the Treasury presented in June, 309 IEF files were subject to control in 2023 (compared to 325 in 2022) and 135 operations were authorized. “Of them, 44% were accompanied by conditions to guarantee the preservation of national interests”underlines the Treasury, which considers that “Therefore, the IEF control fully fulfilled its role”.
“Great clearance sale”
But beyond these hundreds of files that often go unnoticed by the media, some acquisitions of big names in the French industry by foreign groups have caused controversy in the last two decades. A note written in October by X-Alternative and General Interest, two groups of polytechnics and senior officials close to the left, indicates that “From 2008 to 2023, fifteen strategic French companies were bought by foreign players, of which eleven came under the American flag”. TO “big clearance sale” which, according to these groups, weakens the French industrial fabric because, “Each time these acquisitions take with them numerous SMEs, subcontractors and suppliers who are deprived of their main client”.
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