SAN FRANCISCO President François Hollande announced on Wednesday measures to boost innovation and start-ups in France, as he became the first French leader in 30 years, since president François Mitterrand, to set foot in California.
On the last day of his visit to the US, Mr Hollande, who has seen his approval ratings plummet at home over his failure to restore economic prosperity, said that “France must recognise the dynamism of its entrepreneurs”.
That meant promoting “the spirit of initiative,” he declared to French start-up leaders at French Tech Hub, a business incubator in San Francisco.
The French president, whom the previous night had wined and dined with President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle, promised to launch a new push for crowdfunding, with the adoption of a rule next month that will promote the financing method, popular in the US. “A project can collect up to a million euros in loans via crowdfunding” for the creation of businesses, he said.
Mr Hollandes visit to San Francisco came after a trip to Washington that was dominated by diplomatic and economic issues, with Mr Obama praising the beleaguered French president as a leader of “courage”. Mr Hollande has been caught in a scandal over his split from partner Valerie Trierweiler, but he appeared to relish centre stage at the White House on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, Mr Hollande met several Silicon Valley big hitters including Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt, Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook, and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey.
“We are not afraid of anything, not afraid to put our best companies in Silicon Valley, not afraid either to attract talent or foreign investors to our country,” he said. He made no mention of the tax optimisation strategies used by internet giants such as Google, which he described as “unacceptable” a week ago, vowing that France would not continue to tolerate them.
