Overview
Business France is France’s national agency for international business development, export promotion, and foreign investment attraction. Established in 2015 through the merger of UBIFRANCE (export promotion) and Invest in France Agency (foreign investment), Business France employs approximately 1,500 people across its Paris headquarters and 80+ offices in 70+ countries. Its dual mandate — helping French companies export, and attracting foreign companies to invest in France — makes it the primary institutional interface between France’s domestic industrial ambitions and the global investment and trade economy.
Business France operates under joint supervision of the Ministry of Economy and Finance, the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs, and Bpifrance. Its annual budget exceeds €100 million — a modest sum relative to France’s investment promotion ambitions, but significantly amplified by its global office network and its role organizing events that generate investment commitments far larger than its operating costs. The agency’s most prominent and impactful activity is organizing the Choose France Summit at Versailles — an annual event that has become France’s primary vehicle for high-level foreign investment attraction.
France 2030 Role & Responsibilities
Business France’s France 2030 role is to translate the plan’s industrial ambitions into specific investment attraction narratives for foreign companies and investors. While SGPI designs the plan and Bpifrance deploys domestic funds, Business France ensures that France 2030’s opportunities — R&D grants, industrial zone availability, skilled workforce, research institutions — are communicated effectively to decision-makers at multinational companies, private equity firms, sovereign wealth funds, and foreign development banks.
Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) Promotion: Business France’s primary France 2030 deliverable is securing foreign investment commitments in the sectors France 2030 prioritizes — semiconductors, electric vehicles, hydrogen, AI, health. The STMicroelectronics-GlobalFoundries Crolles semiconductor announcement, Renault’s EV production expansion, and multiple battery gigafactory commitments all involved Business France in the investor relations and site selection process. Business France tracks FDI projects — by country of origin, sector, and job creation — and publishes annual barometer data used to demonstrate France 2030’s investment attraction impact.
Investor Roadshows: Business France organizes targeted roadshows in major investment capitals — New York, London, Tokyo, Seoul, Singapore, Abu Dhabi — presenting France 2030 opportunities to financial institutions, strategic investors, and corporate headquarters. These events complement the Macron-level Choose France Summit with more sectoral and technical content targeted at investment decision-makers rather than CEOs.
Site Selection Support: For foreign companies evaluating France as a manufacturing or R&D location, Business France provides site selection support — identifying available industrial land, connecting companies with regional economic development agencies, and facilitating contact with Bpifrance on available grants. This practical support — reducing the friction of navigating an unfamiliar national administration — is crucial for competing with UK, Germany, and Poland for mobile international investment.
Sectoral Investment Guides: Business France publishes detailed sector guides — “Investing in France’s EV Ecosystem,” “France’s Semiconductor Opportunity,” “AI in France” — that present France 2030 opportunities in formats accessible to foreign investors. These publications, primarily in English, are the primary English-language official documentation of France 2030’s investment proposition.
Export Support (France 2030 Company Internationalization): Business France also supports France 2030 beneficiary companies in international expansion — particularly through its VIE (Volontariat International en Entreprise) program that enables French companies to deploy young graduates in international markets, reducing the cost of early internationalization.
Key Programs Managed
Choose France Summit Logistics: Business France manages the operational organization of the annual Versailles summit — invitations, bilateral meeting scheduling, investment announcement coordination, and follow-up tracking.
France is AI Campaign: A dedicated France 2030 marketing campaign positioning France as a global AI hub — featuring Mistral AI, Hugging Face, and the broader French AI ecosystem in materials distributed internationally.
French Fab Label: A quality label for French industrial manufacturers — awarded to French facilities meeting high standards of quality, competitiveness, and innovation — that Business France promotes internationally as evidence of French manufacturing excellence.
Invest in France Award: Annual awards ceremony recognizing foreign investors who have made significant commitments to France — an event that creates peer community dynamics encouraging further investment.
Leadership & Key Personnel
Franck Riester, Chairman of the Board: A former minister (Culture, Foreign Trade), Riester chairs Business France’s board, ensuring ministerial-level political commitment to the agency’s mission.
Bénédicte Coste, CEO: A career diplomat and international business executive, Coste manages Business France’s day-to-day operations and its global office network.
Strategic Importance
Business France’s France 2030 contribution is measurable in a way that few government programs are: France consistently ranks first or second in Europe for FDI project numbers (projects, not necessarily total investment volume), and the trend toward greenfield industrial investment — battery gigafactories, semiconductor fabs, data centers — has been accelerating. The 2024 Choose France Summit generated €15 billion in announced investments — more than the entire annual GDP of some small European economies.
The critical question is additionality: would these investments have come to France without Business France’s promotion and support activities? Honest assessment suggests mixed conclusions. The large strategic investments — semiconductor fabs, battery gigafactories — were driven primarily by France 2030’s financial incentives and France’s industrial assets (skilled workforce, energy infrastructure, research institutions). Business France’s contribution is primarily in the smaller, more discretionary investments where country selection is genuinely uncertain and where France’s investment promotion activities make the difference.