Hydrogen, nuclear fusion, carbon capture… Emmanuel Macron wants to “accelerate” innovation to give a boost to his industrial plan

2023-12-12 03:45:08

It’s known, Emmanuel Macron likes it when things go well “faster, stronger”. Particularly in economic and industrial matters. The President of the Republic recalled this in these words, Monday December 11, from Haute-Garonne, where he came to celebrate the two years of the France 2030 investment plan. But the Head of State gave himself up to measured satisfaction, under the shadow of the enormous A350-900 reactors, installed in the immense hangar of the Airbus industrial site, in Blagnac, near Toulouse.

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Certainly, he was pleased that in just two years, the plan, set up at the end of the health crisis, has ensured the financing of 3,200 industrial projects, and that its 54 billion euros of capacity makes it possible to ‘“invest massively in technological innovation”. Certainly, the country has succeeded in waking up its industry following four decades of deindustrialization, with the installation of “gigafactories” (giant factories) in the automobile industry to manufacture electric batteries, or in electrolysis. But Emmanuel Macron warns: there is no question of declaring victory yet.

France and the European Union (EU) must face competition from China – with a program largely subsidized by the State – and the United States where the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), decided by the Biden administration in 2022, puts on the table 370 billion dollars (345 billion euros) over ten years to finance the technologies of the future. “Our strategy is the most effective at European level, we are not failing, affirmed the President of the Republic, but we are not at all there either because things are going much faster elsewhere, in China and the United States! »

Investing in artificial intelligence

Order is therefore given to “continue to accelerate”. How ? In his one-hour speech, Emmanuel Macron promised, pell-mell, to“further reduce our deadlines” administrative to allow industrialists to set up in France; to continue to invest in the atom by developing research in “nuclear fusion and superconducting magnets” in addition to EPR plants and SMR mini reactors.

He also committed to financing “a French hydrogen sector” and enable carbon capture and storage in “a serious, limited and relevant framework” as a goal “up to 10% of CO emissions2 [capturées] by 2030 ». Finally, he wants to continue to secure France’s access to rare metals (lithium, cobalt, nickel, etc.), essential to the industrial transition but largely held by China, and to invest in artificial intelligence (AI) while the French start-up Mistral IA has just completed a fundraising of 385 million euros.

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