Industrial sovereignty: Emmanuel Macron intends to accelerate

The “industrial reconquest”. An obsession for Emmanuel Macron. After a strategic speech to business leaders gathered at the Elysée Palace on May 11, the President of the Republic moved on to practical work, with no less than three meetings on this topic on his agenda during the week of May 12. June. “The battle for reindustrialization is key economically, is key geopolitically, is key politically and for the unity of the nation,” he insisted when presenting his objectives.

First step: Emmanuel Macron will go to Champagne, Ardèche, on Tuesday June 13, to visit the site of the Aguettant laboratory, specializing in injectable anesthesia and resuscitation products. He wants to rely on this example to speed up on the subject of “health sovereignty”, while stock-outs and supply tensions on medicines were glaring during the Covid-19 pandemic. And again last winter when it came to highly prescribed antibiotics, such as amoxicillin, but also paracetamol.

While between 60% and 80% of the active ingredients of drugs are produced in Asia, the Head of State wants to curb this addiction. “We have simplified the procedures, accelerated, invested, so we will succeed in innovative treatments and their access, he assured on May 11. We will also have the relocation of other strategic drugs. “In 2020, he had indeed made a commitment to relaunch the production of paracetamol in France, and a factory is under construction in Isère. “How do we go further? What are the essential products that we are going to relocate? “Questions the Elysée, specifying that a list, among nearly 300 essentials, will be presented in the speech of Emmanuel Macron. In 2022, more than 3,000 declarations of stockouts or risks of stockouts had been received by the National Medicines Safety Agency.

Regulation of new technologies

Second stage, this time on the theme of “technological sovereignty”: Emmanuel Macron will inaugurate, on Wednesday June 14, in Paris, the VivaTech fair dedicated to technological innovation and start-ups, including Elon Musk, boss of Twitter, Tesla and SpaceX, will be one of the main guests. the Head of State must make announcements there in the field of artificial intelligence and on issues of regulation of new technologies. “It is better to try to understand it, to be part of it, then to decide on the regulatory framework. Without haste,” he declared in L’Opinion on May 15. But there is no question of “waking up one morning being less efficient than our competitors”.

Finally, the third stage, the President of the Republic will go, Friday, June 16, to the International Exhibition of Aeronautics and Space at Le Bourget. For its return after the cancellation of the 2021 edition, the event will present projects for flying taxis and low-carbon objects promising to revolutionize air mobility. “The race is on”, notes the Élysée, which wants to explain “where France is in this competition” and “how we achieve decarbonization”. On this subject too, Emmanuel Macron wants to move up a gear.

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