PARIS: President Emmanuel Macron’s campaign for a “French Renaissance” kicked into overdrive Monday as his government welcomed 140 multinational business leaders before this week’s jamboree of the rich and powerful in Davos.
The business-friendly president was to give a dinner speech for the executives gathered at the Versailles chateau near Paris for an event billed as a warm-up for Tuesday’s opening of the World Economic Forum in the Swiss mountains.
Several firms were expected to use the conference to announce major French investments, with Facebook revealing Monday that it would pour an extra 10 million euros ($12.2 million) into its artificial intelligence center in Paris.
Macron himself traveled to Toyota’s car factory in Onnaing, northern France, to mark the Japanese company’s new 300 million euro investment at the site.
“If Toyota decides to invest 300 million euros and create 700 permanent jobs here, it’s because you are good at what you do,” Macron said while posing for selfies with employees.
A former investment banker, Macron has vowed to shake the French economy out of its torpor.
In his first months in office he pushed through reforms to the country’s rigid labor laws and sharply cut wealth taxes and levies on capital gains.
Economic growth has been forecast to rise to 1.9 percent in 2018 by the central bank, and Macron has also pledged to cut corporation tax to 25 percent by 2022 from 33 percent currently.
A survey by the US Chamber of Commerce and consultancy Bain & Company in November found a record 72 percent of US investors were optimistic about the French economy, up from just 30 percent in 2016.
But some executives are keeping their enthusiasm in check, saying the bigger challenges of cutting France’s huge debt pile and its public spending — and pushing through the tax cuts for businesses — still lie ahead.
“We’re still waiting to see more clearly on government reforms,” Pierre-Andre de Chalendar, CEO of the glass and building materials giant Saint-Gobain, told Le Figaro daily Monday.
France’s deficit for 2017 is forecast to finally fall under the eurozone limit of three percent of GDP, for the first time in ten years.
“Even with a deficit under the three percent limit, France still has one of the worst financial situations among almost all its eurozone partners,” Didier Migaud, president of France’s Court of Auditors, warned Monday.
Macron’s predecessors have held similar gatherings of CEOs, but the scale of his “Choose France” conference goes far beyond those hosted by Francois Hollande or Nicolas Sarkozy.
The Socialist Hollande hosted 34 world business leaders in 2014, while rightwinger Sarkozy rolled out the red carpet for 25 in 2011.
“We’ve taken advantage of the fact that economic leaders are coming to Europe by inviting 100 CEOs of the biggest world companies and developing 100 projects with them for France,” a source in the presidency said.
The bosses of Coca-Cola, Google, Siemens and Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, and the chief operating officer of Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg, are among those to have taken up the invitation.
While Macron has been given much of the credit for boosting France’s standing on the international stage, foreign investment had already begun to pick up before his May 2017 election.
But such investments have failed to make a significant difference on the jobs front, with France’s unemployment rate still stuck at 9.7 percent — nearly twice that of Britain or Germany.
“Let’s not call them reforms if it’s not really the case. These aren’t revolutions, but the country has certainly changed direction,” Philippe Brassac, head of French bank Credit Agricole, told Le Figaro.
In tax terms, France has also benefited little from the presence of tech giants such as Google and Facebook — a bone of contention for Macron, who is pushing for them to contribute more to state coffers.
The Versailles conference comes the day before leaders from 60 countries and 1,700 businesses start descending on Davos for the world’s most exclusive talking shop.
The 40-year-old French president himself takes to the stage in Davos on Wednesday, where he is set to cut a contrasting figure to that of US President Donald Trump.
While Trump campaigned on an anti-elitist platform that railed against globalization, Macron has defended globalization, though he will call for a more balanced form of it in his Davos speech.
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Macron hosts 140 CEOs in pre-Davos charm offensive
Macron hosts 140 CEOs in pre-Davos charm offensive
Privacy activists call on California to remove covert license plate readers
- Groups believe gadgets feed data into a controversial US Border Patrol predictive domestic intelligence program
- An algorithm flags vehicles deemed suspicious based on where they came from, where they were going and which route they took
More than two dozen privacy and advocacy organizations are calling on California Gov. Gavin Newsom to remove a network of covert license plate readers deployed across Southern California that the groups believe feed data into a controversial US Border Patrol predictive domestic intelligence program that scans the country’s roadways for suspicious travel patterns.
“We ask that your administration investigate and release the relevant permits, revoke them, and initiate the removal of these devices,” read the letter sent Tuesday by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Imperial Valley Equity and Justice and other nonprofits.
An Associated Press investigation published in November revealed that the US Border Patrol, an agency under US Customs and Border Protection, had hidden license plate readers in ordinary traffic safety equipment. The data collected by the Border Patrol plate readers was then fed into a predictive intelligence program monitoring millions of American drivers nationwide to identify and detain people whose travel patterns it deems suspicious.
AP obtained land use permits from Arizona showing that the Border Patrol went to great lengths to conceal its surveillance equipment in that state, camouflaging it by placing it inside orange and yellow construction barrels dotting highways.
The letter said the groups’ researchers have identified a similar network of devices in California, finding about 40 license plate readers in San Diego and Imperial counties, both of which border Mexico. More than two dozen of the plate readers identified by the groups were hidden in construction barrels.
They could not determine of the ownership of every device, but the groups said in the letter that they obtained some permits from the California Department of Transportation, showing both the Border Patrol and Drug Enforcement Administration had applied for permission to place readers along state highways. DEA shares its license plate reader data with Border Patrol, documents show.
The letter cited the AP’s reporting, which found that Border Patrol uses a network of cameras to scan and record vehicle license plate information. An algorithm flags vehicles deemed suspicious based on where they came from, where they were going and which route they took. Agents appeared to be looking for vehicles making short trips to the border region, claiming that such travel is indicative of potential drug or human smuggling.
Federal agents in turn sometimes refer drivers they deem suspicious to local law enforcement who make a traffic stop citing a reason like speeding or lane change violations. Drivers often have no idea they have been caught up in a predictive intelligence program being run by a federal agency.
The AP identified at least two cases in which California residents appeared to have been caught up in the Border Patrol’s surveillance of domestic travel patterns. In one 2024 incident described in court documents, a Border Patrol agent pulled over the driver of a Nissan Altima based in part on vehicle travel data showing that it took the driver six hours to travel the approximately 50 miles between the US-Mexican border and Oceanside, California, where the agent had been on patrol.
“This type of delay in travel after crossing the International Border from Mexico is a common tactic used by persons involved in illicit smuggling,” the agent wrote in a court document.
In another case, Border Patrol agents said in a court document in 2023 they detained a woman at an internal checkpoint because she had traveled a circuitous route between Los Angeles and Phoenix. In both cases, law enforcement accused the drivers of smuggling immigrants in the country unlawfully and were seeking to seize their property or charge them with a crime.
The intelligence program, which has existed under administrations of both parties, has drawn scrutiny from lawmakers since the AP revealed its existence last year.
A spokesperson for the California Department of Transportation said state law prioritizes public safety and privacy.
The office of Newsom, a Democrat, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Courts have generally upheld license plate reader collection on public roads but have curtailed warrantless government access to other kinds of persistent tracking data that might reveal sensitive details about people’s movements, such as GPS devices or cellphone location data. Some scholars and civil libertarians argues that large-scale collection systems like plate readers might be unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment.
“Increasingly, courts have recognized that the use of surveillance technologies can violate the Fourth Amendment’s protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. Although this area of law is still developing, the use of LPRs and predictive algorithms to track and flag individuals’ movements represents the type of sweeping surveillance that should raise constitutional concerns,” the organizations wrote.
CBP did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but previously said the agency uses plate readers to help identify threats and disrupt criminal networks and their use of the technology is “governed by a stringent, multi-layered policy framework, as well as federal law and constitutional protections, to ensure the technology is applied responsibly and for clearly defined security purposes.”
The DEA said in a statement that the agency does not publicly discuss its investigative tools and techniques.
“We ask that your administration investigate and release the relevant permits, revoke them, and initiate the removal of these devices,” read the letter sent Tuesday by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Imperial Valley Equity and Justice and other nonprofits.
An Associated Press investigation published in November revealed that the US Border Patrol, an agency under US Customs and Border Protection, had hidden license plate readers in ordinary traffic safety equipment. The data collected by the Border Patrol plate readers was then fed into a predictive intelligence program monitoring millions of American drivers nationwide to identify and detain people whose travel patterns it deems suspicious.
AP obtained land use permits from Arizona showing that the Border Patrol went to great lengths to conceal its surveillance equipment in that state, camouflaging it by placing it inside orange and yellow construction barrels dotting highways.
The letter said the groups’ researchers have identified a similar network of devices in California, finding about 40 license plate readers in San Diego and Imperial counties, both of which border Mexico. More than two dozen of the plate readers identified by the groups were hidden in construction barrels.
They could not determine of the ownership of every device, but the groups said in the letter that they obtained some permits from the California Department of Transportation, showing both the Border Patrol and Drug Enforcement Administration had applied for permission to place readers along state highways. DEA shares its license plate reader data with Border Patrol, documents show.
The letter cited the AP’s reporting, which found that Border Patrol uses a network of cameras to scan and record vehicle license plate information. An algorithm flags vehicles deemed suspicious based on where they came from, where they were going and which route they took. Agents appeared to be looking for vehicles making short trips to the border region, claiming that such travel is indicative of potential drug or human smuggling.
Federal agents in turn sometimes refer drivers they deem suspicious to local law enforcement who make a traffic stop citing a reason like speeding or lane change violations. Drivers often have no idea they have been caught up in a predictive intelligence program being run by a federal agency.
The AP identified at least two cases in which California residents appeared to have been caught up in the Border Patrol’s surveillance of domestic travel patterns. In one 2024 incident described in court documents, a Border Patrol agent pulled over the driver of a Nissan Altima based in part on vehicle travel data showing that it took the driver six hours to travel the approximately 50 miles between the US-Mexican border and Oceanside, California, where the agent had been on patrol.
“This type of delay in travel after crossing the International Border from Mexico is a common tactic used by persons involved in illicit smuggling,” the agent wrote in a court document.
In another case, Border Patrol agents said in a court document in 2023 they detained a woman at an internal checkpoint because she had traveled a circuitous route between Los Angeles and Phoenix. In both cases, law enforcement accused the drivers of smuggling immigrants in the country unlawfully and were seeking to seize their property or charge them with a crime.
The intelligence program, which has existed under administrations of both parties, has drawn scrutiny from lawmakers since the AP revealed its existence last year.
A spokesperson for the California Department of Transportation said state law prioritizes public safety and privacy.
The office of Newsom, a Democrat, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Courts have generally upheld license plate reader collection on public roads but have curtailed warrantless government access to other kinds of persistent tracking data that might reveal sensitive details about people’s movements, such as GPS devices or cellphone location data. Some scholars and civil libertarians argues that large-scale collection systems like plate readers might be unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment.
“Increasingly, courts have recognized that the use of surveillance technologies can violate the Fourth Amendment’s protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. Although this area of law is still developing, the use of LPRs and predictive algorithms to track and flag individuals’ movements represents the type of sweeping surveillance that should raise constitutional concerns,” the organizations wrote.
CBP did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but previously said the agency uses plate readers to help identify threats and disrupt criminal networks and their use of the technology is “governed by a stringent, multi-layered policy framework, as well as federal law and constitutional protections, to ensure the technology is applied responsibly and for clearly defined security purposes.”
The DEA said in a statement that the agency does not publicly discuss its investigative tools and techniques.
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