“Then at the other extreme, [the left-wing New Popular Front] “There's been so much talk about all the tax measures they want to bring back that it seems like we're just going back to the pre-Macron era,” says Verza. He refers to France's 2012 “less Pigeon” (or “Soccer”) refers to the movement, a campaign of disgruntled Internet entrepreneurs who opposed Socialist President Francois Hollande's plan to dramatically raise taxes for founders.
Maya Noel, CEO of France Digital, an industry group for startups, is concerned not only about France's ability to attract overseas talent, but also how open the next government will be to foreign investors. It will be attractive. In February, Google said it would open a new AI center in Paris, housing 300 researchers and engineers. Three months later, Microsoft also announced a record $4 billion investment in its French AI infrastructure. Meta has had an AI research lab in Paris since 2015. She says that France today is attractive to foreign investors. “And we need them.” Neither Google nor Meta responded to WIRED's request for comment. Microsoft declined to comment.
The vote itself will not remove Macron — the presidential election is not scheduled until 2027 — but the election results could dramatically reshape the lower house of the French parliament, the National Assembly, and install a prime minister from the far right or left. are Wing Alliance. This will plunge the government into uncertainty, increasing the risk of gridlock. In the past 60 years, there have been only three occasions when a president has been forced to govern with a prime minister from an opposition party, an arrangement known in France as “cohabitation”.
No AI startup has benefited more from the Macron era than Mistral, which counts Cédric O, former digital minister in Macron's government, among its co-founders. Mistral has not commented publicly on the choices facing France in the election. The closest the company has come to sharing its views is Cédric O's decision last week to repost an X post by entrepreneur Gilles Babinet that said: “I hate the far right but the left “The economic program is unrealistic.” When WIRED asked Mistral about the retweet, the company said O was not a spokesperson, and declined to comment.
Babinette, a member of the government's artificial intelligence committee, says he has heard colleagues considering leaving France. “I know some coders from Senegal, Morocco, they are already planning their next move,” he says, claiming that people have asked him to help them renew their visas as soon as possible. Even if it becomes more difficult under a far-right government.
While other industries are quietly scrambling to support the far-right as a better alternative to left-wing coalitions, Bobnett reportedly downplays the threat of the New Popular Front. “It's clear that they come with very old-fashioned economic principles, and so they don't understand the new economy at all,” he says. But after talking to members of the New Popular Front, he says the hard left is a minority in the coalition. “Most of these people are social democrats, and so they know from experience that when Francois Hollande came to power, he tried to raise taxes on technology, and it failed miserably.”
There is already a sense of damage control, as the industry tries to reassure outsiders that all will be well. Bobnett points to other moments of political chaos that industries survived. “At the end of the day, Brexit wasn't such a nightmare for the UK tech scene,” he says. The UK is still the preferred location for generative AI startups, Excel reports.
Stanislas Polu, an OpenAI alumnus who launched French AI startup Dust last year, agrees that the industry has enough momentum to weather any coming setbacks. “Some of the results could be a little sad,” he says, adding that he expects personal finances to take a hit. “Navigating a high-volatility environment is always a little more complicated. I guess we're hoping for more moderate people to rule this country. I think that's all we can hope for.” “