In early January, Las Vegas welcomed thousands of tech industry professionals to the annual Consumer Electronics Show. As always, the premier international tech showcase boasted partnerships and unveilings and launches and, no doubt, hundreds of elevator sales pitches. For European industry insiders, though, it was a politician who stood above the largely business crowd.
Emmanuel Macron, who was installed by President François Hollande as economic minister as recently as August, became the first economy minister to attend the event. It was just the latest in a series of firsts for Macron, at 37 years old the youngest French cabinet minister in living memory, and a clear indication to Mazurier and fellow European financiers that the charismatic former banker known as the “Mozart of finance” is determined to do things differently from his predecessors.
Where former French economy ministers shied away from business and created a finance bogeyman, Mazurier said, Macron is committed to bridging the gulf between French government and business. For example, you won’t find Macron in a similar position to the man he replaced, Arnaud Montebourg, who in early 2014 blocked a deal that would see French streaming video platform Dailymotion sold to Yahoo for $300 million.
At Le Web technology conference in Paris in December, Macron was again in attendance and made a speech laying out his commitment “to innovation, to modernization, to acceleration.” He proved that in Las Vegas, where he came out in support of French startups like Parrot (mentioned above), watchmaker Withings and a host of others. More than 100 French start-ups were in attendance at CES, making up 22% of the total start-up roster at the event. By comparison, the United States had only around 20. (The event was focused more on hardware and manufacturing technology start-ups, as opposed to software and apps, which plays to France’s strengths in the sector.)
Despite the number of start-ups, there is still room for expansion in the sector. Start-up sales doubled in 2013, and France’s digital economy is responsible for just 5.5% of the nation’s GDP (€113 billion). The United Kingdom, by comparison, counts 10% of its GDP from digital.
Still, Mazurier notes that there are obstacles in the way of France and Macron’s total embrace of the digital economy. Like the rest of French industry, digital agencies are subject to the same labyrinthine rules of the government, and it will take more than a young, progressive economy minister to sort and simplify them. It’s difficult for start-ups to get funding because, in many cases, their access to banks are blocked and, when not blocked, banks are hesitant to fund companies who must grow within the strict confines of French regulation.
If anyone can turn the tide, though, Mazurier thinks it’s Macron, a centrist with experience in finance, and youthful enough to realize that France must pivot with the rest of the globe toward the digital sphere.