France’s attractiveness is blooming, including for the Nordics

In a recent survey by Kantar public, 54% of foreign executives declared France had become a better business destination in the last two years. The increase of 16 percentage points from 2016 was the largest seen in the last five years. Other business observers are reaching similar conclusions, as another survey conducted in December 2017 by Ipsos revealed that 60% of foreign business leaders thought that France was an attractive country for businesses. Brice Teinturier, Executive Director at Ipsos, was quick to highlight that those figures had nearly doubled since 2016.

Still according to Kantar survey, France’s relative attractiveness has sharply risen, since France is now seen as the second most attractive country in Europe after Germany, ahead of the United Kingdom. One-third of business decision-makers put France as their number one destination in Europe for foreign investments, up 10 percentage points from 2016. Brexit has led to a ‘wait-and-see’ attitude being adopted by foreign investors, particularly those from emerging economies that had until now overwhelmingly chosen the United Kingdom as a European export hub.

And France is especially increasingly attractive for Nordic countries, as total investments in France coming from Nordic countries rose by 35% since 2016 (Business France Stockholm). The evolution of Swedish (+76%) and Finnish (+100%) investments are particularly impressive, and attests from the positive image that France is radiating.