the governor of the Banque de France wants to “recover the 300 billion euros” invested outside Europe

The inauguration of Donald Trump gave ideas to the governor of the Bank of France. Present at the World Economic Forum in Davos, François Villeroy de Galhau welcomed the speech by Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, this Tuesday, January 21, at the microphone of BFM Business.

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“She said that we Europeans will stick to our values, to the rules of law. Simply, we have to be more offensive in the way we defend them. And then she drew up a program for changing Europe, accelerating growth and innovation in Europe”he congratulated himself.

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He wishes to recall that the fate of Europeans “does not depend on the Americans and the Chinese” and that it is therefore “time to activate the levers we have in Europe to invest”. The governor of the Banque de France targets private savings, which would be “abundant” on the Old Continent and would not sufficiently benefit European companies.

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“We do not lack capital, but we lack capital markets”

There is “300 billion euros of savings of Europeans who will invest outside Europe and first in the United States”he laments. So, “we do not lack capital, but we lack capital markets and generally financial intermediation which is much stronger in the United States”. And throw: “Let’s recover these 300 billion to meet the investment needs we have in Europe. Particularly in the climate and digital transition”.

This idea is not new, but has never come to fruition. Le Figaro recalls that a report from the General Directorate of the Treasury last April highlights that “neither public budgets nor bank balance sheets will be able to support this large-scale investment effort”. If the money Europe needs cannot come from state subsidies, tax credits, or loans granted by banks, there remains one avenue: the savings of Europeans. In any case, this is the reasoning of the government of the Banque de France: “ Do the best of what Americans do, that is to say, finance at the service of the economy”.