Emmanuel Macron assured business leaders including Elon Musk that France would not descend into chaos just hours before . At a private lunch in the Elysee Palace, the French president told Mr Musk and around 40 other senior global executives that the country would remain economically stable and a positive place to invest. The gathering on Thursday was aimed at reassuring blue-chip attendees including the heads of Goldman Sachs, Uber and luxury goods company LVMH, after a snap election called by Mr Macron this summer .
His pledge of stability came before sabotage attacks paralysed France’s high-speed rail network ahead of the high-profile Olympics opening ceremony. According to people who attended the lunch, Mr Macron fielded questions about the French elections, geopolitics, green energy and the economy among other things, for two to three hours. He insisted the snap poll was aimed at giving divided French voters a chance “to express their views” and added that he could work with a viable coalition government.
party as well as parties on the hard Left has been growing. One executive present said: “He said France needs to learn how to run with coalitions and that is no bad thing.” They said Mr Macron, who was seated next to LVMH owner Bernard Arnault and Goldman Sachs boss , also seemed unfazed about working with whichever government emerged from fraught party negotiations and reassured executives that France remained open for business.
The charm offensive was described in advance to the French media as a “mini-Choose France”, the investment summit he has held for businesses each year during his presidency. The executive said: “Frankly, the fact that many of these people turned up, including Elon Musk, tells you everything about how he is still regarded. “People have enormous faith in Mr Macron.
He has an ability to look over the hill of current affairs and take a strategic view. “There was a lot of praise for his leadership across the room, both from French executives and others.” Another attendee said: “His argument was that the best way for France to go forward, for the balance of his presidency, was to get all this stuff out there and get people to express their views.
“He seemed quite bullish about the government that might come out of it.” Other topics of discussion around the table included the upcoming US presidential election and . Mr Musk’s decision to support Donald Trump, the Republican candidate, was not brought up.
However, the billionaire is said to have remarked on the “crazy” nature of American politics, noting that in the past two weeks alone and his Democratic rival, President Joe Biden, had dropped out. The Tesla boss is also said to have opined on what humanity’s future might look like if humanoid robots take over menial tasks. “It was about: what will humans do at that point? And how will they be fulfilled?” one person at the lunch said.
to meet Mr Macron for the president’s last Choose France summit, joining 200 other business executives for dinner at the Palace of Versailles. He has yet to invest in France but on that previous visit said he was “very impressed with President Macron and the French government and how welcoming they are to industry”. The president’s success in rolling out the red carpet for business executives has been the centrepiece of his strategy to transform France’s image among international investors.
However, since snap elections in June and July, Mr Macron now faces seeing out the remainder of his presidency – which lasts until 2027 – as a significantly weakened figure. The New Popular Front, a hastily assembled alliance of the hard-Left France Unbowed (LFI) party and the Socialist, Green and Communist parties, unexpectedly secured the biggest share of seats in the vote but were unable to win a majority. It has left the French government rudderless, with Mr Macron’s running a caretaker administration while the political parties hold negotiations about possible coalition governments.
Whoever forms an administration is likely to be at least partially at odds with the president, creating a dynamic that has only existed in French politics a handful of times previously..
