How real is startup movement in France? Is it sustainable? For entrepreneurs, 39-year-old President Macron and 50-year-old research institute CEA-Leti are their needed tailwind.

French engineers, scientists and entrepreneurs are ready to hitch their wagons to a star, President Emmanuel Macron, who wants France to become a “Startup Nation.”

In a country where rigid labor laws have long constrained hiring and firing practices, being “correct” is one of the most important values. French people tend to be risk-averse, preferring, for example, a job at La Post (the national postal service), or in big state corporations like Gaz de France (GDF) or Électricité de France (EDF). Working in big government or big utilities has been the dream of French parents for their kids.

In that context, the idea of a “startup” is the polar opposite to everything for which France stood through at least the 20th century.

When I lived in Paris, in the first decade of the 21st century, I witnessed French stodginess firsthand and concluded that never, in million years, would France change. Or even want to.

But this really is a new century. My numerous trips back to France over the last few years — punctuated by my first “post-Macron” visit last week — gave me pause. I’m updating my position.

There is now indisputable visual evidence that France isn’t just paying lip service to “startups.”  

In particular, what I saw last week, I think, was the beginning of a “network effect” taking hold among researchers and entrepreneurs.

Leti’s 50th birthday, Station F inauguration
I was in Grenoble to see Marie-Noëlle Semeria, CEO of CEA-Leti. She was hosting hundreds of technology partners, celebrating the storied French research institute’s 50th anniversary.

That week, President Macron was in Paris at the inauguration of Station F, a supersized incubator designed to foster 1,000 startups. It was conceived by French billionaire Xavier Niel. Station F, in an abandoned Paris rail depot, is now billed as the world’s biggest startup campus. It lists among its backers Facebook, Microsoft and Amazon. Microsoft is basing its newest AI start-up program there.

These two separate tech-related events, in Paris and Grenoble, were not officially coordinated. Yet, their message was the same.

On one hand, Semeria represents the solid science and engineering foundation in the field of microelectronics that CEA-Leti has fostered for 50 years.

Simultaneously, Macron was present at Station F as a change agent, to tell France that it’s time to put the nation’s technology heritage to use everywhere, in ways big and small, and to do it now.

Next page: Already set in motion