Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2663 actions· ✨ 89 recent

At the 52nd G7 Summit in Évian-les-Bains (June 15–17, 2026, under France's G7 Presidency), the leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States issued a dedicated leaders' declaration committing to secure supply chains for critical minerals by diversifying sourcing, reducing excessive dependencies on any single foreign supplier, and coordinating investment and market-development tools across G7 members. The declaration references the Partnership On Wide Energy and Resources Resilience Asia (POWERR Asia) as a named allied cooperation vehicle, and calls for stronger G7 coordination on emergency supply-chain response and private-capital mobilisation for critical mineral projects outside of concentrated supplier states. This is the first standalone G7 leaders' declaration specifically dedicated to critical minerals supply-chain security, moving beyond language embedded in broader summit communiqués.

On July 12, 2025, French and New Caledonian political parties signed the Bougival Accord ("Accord pour l'Avenir de la Nouvelle-Calédonie"), establishing a Pacte de Refondation Économique et Sociale that commits the French state to €2 billion+ over five years for territorial reconstruction, paired with a dedicated strategic nickel plan to rescue New Caledonia's three severely stressed metallurgical plants — SLN/Doniambo (Eramet), KNS/Koniambo (shut since August 2024), and Prony Resources/Goro. An interministerial mission under the Prime Minister was established to coordinate the recovery. New Caledonia holds approximately 25% of known global nickel reserves and supplies roughly 8% of world mine output, making the fate of its three processing plants a material chokepoint for battery-grade and aerospace-alloy nickel supply chains.

Ministerial order signed by the French Minister of Economy on 2 February 2024 and published in JORF n°0034 of 10 February 2024 establishing France's first national export-control list under Article 9 of EU Regulation 2021/821 on dual-use goods. The arrêté requires prior authorisation for exports to non-EU third countries of (i) quantum computers and their enabling technologies (qubit devices, control systems, measurement equipment) and (ii) equipment for the design, development, production, test and inspection of advanced electronic components, plus associated software and technology. The annex was substantively replaced by the Arrêté du 27 mars 2025 (explicit technical thresholds including ≥34-qubit systems with C-NOT error ≤10⁻⁴, HBM 6000+ processing performance, cryogenic cooling, dry-etch and EUV-mask tooling, and Si-28/Si-30/Ge isotopically-controlled materials) and is repealed by the Arrêté du 10 mars 2026 with entry into force 11 May 2026.

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.