Foreign investment in France’s Grand Est region is projected to climb past €600 million (about $650 million) in 2026, riding the momentum of a record-setting “Choose France” summit hosted by President Emmanuel Macron at the Palace of Versailles on June 1, 2026.
The Grand Est—an industrial, border region next to Germany, Luxembourg and Switzerland—has long carried the scars of factory closures and offshoring. Regional projections now point to a sharp acceleration in inbound capital this year, as France markets itself as a European hub for industry, logistics and artificial intelligence infrastructure.
The national headline number is enormous: Choose France 2026 tallied €93 billion (about $100.4 billion) in announced projects—more than the previous eight editions combined (€87 billion, about $94.0 billion). Macron, who met that day with SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, called it “by far a record edition, and it’s historic.”
A record €93 billion—driven heavily by one investor
Nearly half of the €93 billion total rests on a single player. SoftBank, the Japanese conglomerate led by Son, announced an AI-related infrastructure project ahead of the summit worth about €45 billion (about $48.6 billion), a concentration that complicates any simple reading of the aggregate figure.
Other announcements were still sizable. Emirati fund MGX and Bpifrance—France’s state-backed investment bank—said they would soon select a second site for AI infrastructure worth about €7.5 billion (about $8.1 billion). Investment firm Ardian and Nordic platform Verne announced €5 billion (about $5.4 billion) for data centers, and Salesforce said it expects to invest $2 billion in France by 2030.
Industrial and logistics commitments also featured prominently. Belgian industrial-park developer VGP pledged more than €1.5 billion (about $1.6 billion) and promised 5,000 jobs over six years. DHL said it will invest an additional €160 million (about $173 million) in 2026–2027 to modernize infrastructure and cut its carbon footprint. InPost, owner of parcel-locker and delivery firm Mondial Relay, said it aims to invest at least €500 million more in France by 2030 (about $540 million).
France’s foreign-investment pipeline rebounds above pre-pandemic levels
The Versailles summit comes amid a broader upswing. In 2025, France recorded 1,878 international investment decisions—up 11% from the prior year—according to Business France, the national agency that tracks and promotes foreign investment.
Business France said part of the increase reflects a revised methodology: it now counts all jobs announced at a project’s launch and treats each retail outlet as a separate project, in order to “measure more precisely the attractiveness of the France site as well as the local impact of the investment decision.”
Roland Lescure, France’s minister of the economy and finance, framed the pitch in sovereignty terms after the summit: “We have created a dynamic, which means France embraces its strengths. Now, we want to go all-in on economic sovereignty, energy sovereignty and digital sovereignty. France’s advantages are known worldwide and that starts above all with decarbonized electricity available in large quantities and cheap.”
Why Grand Est thinks it can capture more of the boom
Not every French region attracts foreign capital equally. The Paris region (Île-de-France) and a handful of major metro areas pull in a large share of high value-added projects, particularly in tech and finance. Grand Est is selling different strengths: its cross-border location, its industrial base rooted in metallurgy and chemicals, and real-estate costs below the Paris basin.
The region’s ambition to exceed €600 million (about $650 million) in 2026 is tied to the 71 projects presented at Versailles, which the Élysée Palace said would create 15,600 new jobs nationally. How many of those jobs land in Grand Est remains to be confirmed over the coming months, but the national trajectory points to a strong 2026 for the region.
Heavy industry remains central to that positioning. Italian steelmaker Marcegaglia is adding €600 million (about $650 million) to its Mistral project in Fos-sur-Mer, bringing the total to €1.2 billion (about $1.3 billion). Projects like that—large-scale industrial investments outside the AI boom—more closely match the profile of regions such as Grand Est than the giant data centers highlighted by SoftBank.
The next test, as officials and investors look ahead, will be execution: how much of the €93 billion turns into construction sites, installed equipment and signed employment contracts—region by region—over the next 18 months.
