In July, the Club of Three organised a fireside chat with Édouard Philippe, Mayor of Le Havre, Prime Minister of Fance between 2017 and 2020 and one of the leading candidates for next year’s presidential elections.
The discussion, entitled “Europe at so many crossroads, economically and geopolitically: What can we expect from France in the years ahead”, took place at the Cercle de l’Union interalliée in Paris. It involved some 30 senior figures from France, Germany, the UK and other European countries.
Édouard Philippe outlined his thoughts and plans on how to address the main challenges facing France today. For France to be influential in Europe, it needed to pursue the types of socio-economic reform that other countries like Germany had adopted. It was not enough to be a large territory and have a long history and good ideas. Becoming economically stronger would also be a way of addressing the growing divergence between France and Germany, which was concerning.
Domestically, highlighting the importance of these reforms for future generations was the only way of convincing the public about their merit. Policies needed to put more emphasis on younger people who had been overlooked for too long.
Although the relationship with America was important, especially in a NATO context, Europe had to build up its sovereignty in order to act independently when its own interests were at stake. In areas like AI, France had developed solutions it was proud of, like Mistral AI, but the real answers had to be European in scale. And there could be no credible European defence or financial market integration without the United Kingdom’s involvement.
Participants included: Ross McInnes (Safran); Rafał Brzoska (InPost); Anne-Charlotte Fredenucci (Ametra Group); Sir Thomas Drew (British Embassy); Marc Fontaine (Helsing France); Jean-René Gourion (MBDA); Ulrich Sante (Landesbank Baden-Württemberg); Frank Niederländer (BMW Group); Doris Birkhofer (Siemens France); David Marsh (OMFIF); Olivier Molenaar (Commerzbank); Charles Grant (Centre for European Reform); Arnaud Vaissié (International SOS); Lord Evans of Weardale (House of Lords); Sascha Spoun (Hertie Stiftung); Yara Chakhtoura (Siemens Energy France); Anne-Ruth Herkes (Deutsch-Britische Gesellschaft); Tom Laing-Baker (KPMG); Sharon Lewis (Hogan Lovells); María Sicilia Salvadores (International Energy Agency) and Ben Wreschner (Vodafone)