Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2667 actions· ✨ 89 recent

On 1 April 2026, Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae and President Emmanuel Macron held a Tokyo summit and signed a bilateral roadmap on cooperation in critical minerals — the first formal Japan-France instrument on supply-chain resilience for rare earths and other critical materials. The centrepiece is joint government support for Caremag, a heavy rare-earths refining project in southern France due to begin operations in late 2026, with backing from Japan Organization for Metals and Energy Security (JOGMEC), Iwatani Corporation, and the French government; the project targets approximately 20% of Japan's future demand for dysprosium and terbium (heavy rare-earth oxides used in EV motors, offshore-wind turbines, and electronic components). The two leaders also launched parallel high-level dialogues on dual-use AI, quantum technologies, space (including debris mitigation), cybersecurity, and a joint declaration on startups and innovation, expressing "serious concerns" over export controls on critical minerals and other materials affecting global supply chains — an explicit reference to China's tightening rare-earths export regime.

The European Investment Bank and STMicroelectronics signed a EUR 500 million financing agreement, the first tranche of a EUR 1 billion credit line approved by the EIB, to support semiconductor research, development and high-volume manufacturing investments at ST's Catania and Agrate sites in Italy and its Crolles site in France. About 60% of the facility is earmarked for high-volume manufacturing capacity and 40% for R&D. It is the ninth financing agreement between EIB and STMicroelectronics since 1994, bringing cumulative EIB financing to the company to roughly EUR 4.2 billion, and is explicitly framed by the EIB around European semiconductor competitiveness and strategic autonomy.

The European Investment Bank signed a EUR 450 million loan with Thales to finance the group's 2025-2027 research and development investment programme in aeronautics and radar. The aeronautics stream targets safety and efficiency improvements for civil and military flight; the radar stream funds modernisation of existing equipment and development of a new generation of civil and military radar systems and software. The EIB frames the deal as its first-ever corporate loan to Thales and one of the largest it has extended to Europe's security and defence sector, part of a EUR 3.5 billion (3.5% of 2025 financing) EIB Group allocation to security and defence.

Banque des Territoires, acting on behalf of the French State under the France 2030 programme, launched a EUR 500 million fund-of-funds called "Global Tech Coté" on 7 August 2025. The vehicle takes minority stakes (EUR 15 million minimum, capped at 10% of a target fund's subscribed capital) in privately-managed investment funds that in turn back publicly-listed French technology companies with strong growth potential, aiming to build up domestic asset-management capacity alongside the state's stated goal of channelling capital into equities. The selection window for management companies runs until 31 December 2026 or until the EUR 500 million envelope is exhausted, whichever comes first.

On 5 March 2025 the European Commission adopted Communication COM(2025) 95 final, the "Industrial Action Plan for the European Automotive Sector", a horizontal sectoral industrial-policy framework structured around five pillars: innovation and digitalisation, clean mobility, competitiveness and supply-chain resilience, skills and the social dimension, and a global level playing field. Headline financial commitments include EUR 1bn under Horizon Europe for SDV/AI in mobility (2025-2027), EUR 1.8bn Innovation Fund earmark for EU battery cell manufacturing, EUR 350m for next-generation battery R&D (2025-2027), and EUR 570m under the Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Facility (2025-2026) for heavy-duty charging corridors. The plan also delivers a targeted CO2-standards flexibility allowing 2025-2027 combined-year compliance for cars and vans, and the launch of the European Connected and Autonomous Vehicle Alliance.

France's first dedicated critical-minerals industrial-finance instrument: a €500m state contribution to a critical metals and rare materials investment fund, jointly announced by the Ministry of the Economy and the Ministry of Ecological Transition on 11 May 2023, targeting €2bn total fundraising including private capital. Managed by InfraVia Capital Partners with Caisse des Dépôts as state operator, the fund invests as minority partner across extraction, processing and recycling — in France, Europe and globally — prioritising off-take agreements for French and European industry. The fund operationalises the Stratégie Nationale Métaux Critiques framework (Varin Report delivered 10 January 2022) alongside the OFREMI critical-minerals observatory at BRGM and the inter-ministerial delegate for strategic-metals supply security.

Loi n° 2023-973 du 23 octobre 2023 relative à l'industrie verte (the Green Industry Law) is France's first comprehensive industrial-policy framework since France 2030 (2021). Published in the Journal officiel on 24 October 2023, it pursues three objectives: (i) accelerate the siting of strategic industrial projects on French territory, (ii) channel public procurement toward "virtuous" companies, and (iii) mobilise private savings for green-industrial CapEx. Its centrepiece is the new "Projet d'intérêt national majeur" (PINM) status, an exceptional procedure that fast-tracks urban planning, environmental permitting, and grid connection for projects deemed strategic for ecological transition or national sovereignty (gigafactories, hydrogen electrolysers, advanced semiconductor fabs). The law also creates the Plan d'épargne avenir climat (PEAC), a long-duration retail savings product reserved for under-21s and earmarked for European green-industrial financing, and codifies a 2023-2030 national green-industry strategy.

France 2030 is a €54 billion public investment plan unveiled by President Emmanuel Macron on 12 October 2021 to fund breakthrough innovation and reindustrialisation across ten strategic priorities — small modular nuclear reactors, green hydrogen, low-carbon transport (incl. two million EVs/year), food/agritech, twenty drug therapies for cancer and chronic disease, cultural industries, space, deep-sea exploration, semiconductors and electronic components, and robotics/digital (AI/cloud). Two cross-cutting rules require 50% of investment to flow to decarbonisation and 50% to emerging innovative players. Operationalised from the 2022 budget law, the plan is coordinated by the Secrétariat général pour l'investissement (SGPI) under the Prime Minister and delivered by ANR, ADEME, Bpifrance and Caisse des Dépôts / Banque des Territoires.