Definition
The Programme d’Investissements d’Avenir (PIA — Future Investments Programme) is the predecessor framework to France 2030. Launched in 2010 on the recommendation of a commission chaired by former Prime Ministers Michel Rocard and Alain Juppé, the PIA represented France’s first systematic attempt to use large-scale public investment — financed by government borrowing rather than the annual budget — to rebuild its innovation and industrial competitiveness. Over four successive waves (PIA 1 through PIA 4/France 2030), the program invested over €110 billion in France’s research, innovation, and industrial ecosystem, creating the institutions, processes, and portfolio companies that France 2030 now operates at larger scale.
Role in France 2030
Understanding the PIA lineage is essential for contextualizing France 2030 within French economic governance. France 2030 is not a break from the past — it is the direct continuation and amplification of a fifteen-year investment program. The institutions that France 2030 relies on (Bpifrance, ADEME, the SGPI’s predecessor the CGI), the competition structures (appels à projets, guichets), the evaluation methodologies, and the portfolio management approaches were all developed across PIA 1, 2, and 3. France 2030 benefits from a decade of institutional learning.
The PIA programs also created many of the companies that France 2030 is now scaling. Pasqal (quantum computing) emerged from CEA-funded research that PIA supported. Lhyfe (green hydrogen) benefited from ADEME programs rooted in PIA’s energy transition investments. OVHcloud built its early infrastructure with PIA-supported research programs. The pipeline of France 2030 beneficiaries is substantially composed of companies that took their first institutional support from PIA programs.
PIA 3 (2017) was the most directly connected to France 2030, introducing the concept of investments in future industrial champions and first-of-a-kind industrial demonstrations that France 2030 has dramatically scaled. PIA 3 also introduced the i-Démo competition for large innovation demonstrators — the program that France 2030 has continued and expanded as its flagship large-project competition.
Key Facts
- PIA 1 (2010): €35 billion — the Grand Emprunt; financed via government bonds
- PIA 2 (2014): €12 billion — expansion with greater focus on industrial innovation
- PIA 3 (2017): €10 billion — introduced i-Démo, increased focus on industrial demonstrators
- PIA 4 / France 2030 (2022): €54 billion — explicit industrial sovereignty focus
- Total PIA + France 2030 investment since 2010: over €111 billion
- PIA created the institutional foundation: OSEO/Bpifrance, competition processes, portfolio management
- Many current France 2030 beneficiaries are PIA alumni who have reached scale-up stage
Why It Matters
The PIA track record provides investors and analysts with a 15-year longitudinal dataset for evaluating France 2030’s likely effectiveness. PIA programs produced genuine successes — companies like Dataiku (AI), Deezer (music streaming), Ledger (crypto hardware), and dozens of deep tech companies that PIA supported in their early stages and that are now significant France 2030-era scale-ups. PIA also produced failures and waste, particularly in large industrial demonstrators that didn’t achieve commercial viability.
The lesson France 2030 has taken from the PIA experience is to combine the PIA’s strength (patient capital, institutional continuity, research-to-deployment pipeline) with greater selectivity (fewer, larger bets in strategically critical sectors), clearer commercial milestones, and more explicit sovereignty criteria. Whether France 2030 outperforms PIA will be visible in its factory openings, job creation, and company valuations data over the decade ahead.