"We are being treated like lepers" (Pierre Gattaz)

Well, in fact, it is a collective of entrepreneurs, but the idea is to be very broad. What is the underlying philosophy? It's that we are surrounded by dangers. There are dangers; we risk losing our food, security, and defense sovereignty—there are threats everywhere, and we want to turn these threats into opportunities for growth and jobs. So, in what fields? Well, the military, of course, security, and food. Yes. Yes. And in fact, the idea is to regain freedom and not be dependent. We cannot buy our ammunition from our worst adversaries. Basically, in an extremely volatile geopolitical world. We must take our destinies into our own hands; we must stop being passive and start building the future. And it is a virtuous future since these are markets for us French and Europeans to develop military systems to defend ourselves. Around security, it’s enormous. Around food, health, the planet, energy, and climate—these are matters of sovereignty. And transversally, there are cross-cutting technologies like quantum, like electronic components... So, we are not going to invest; we are going to help this collective to push three things. Conducting analyses with researchers, with national education institutions, with chairs of advanced studies on sovereignty, for example. So the idea is first to analyze, and the second thing is to link, to connect people who are interested in these subjects. Everyone needs to get interested in this subject. These are major topics for regaining our freedom and production capacity. And finally, we must act because we are, after all, industrialists. So with us are Michelin, Safran, EDF, Isalt—people who are the small core, I would say, of this institute, of this endowment fund called Avenir Souveraineté, and of course, not forgetting the Europeans. People like Enrico Letta have joined us, like the economist Philippe Aghion have joined us. So I would say it's very encouraging to tell ourselves, 'Finally, we are starting to take our destiny into our own hands; we no longer want to endure attacks and assaults, and we are, once again, transforming threats into opportunities for growth, innovation, research, and jobs.'

Yes, well, it's always the same. So, I deeply believe in France, despite the absolutely surreal political speeches we've been hearing since the dissolution. We continue to fight, we continue to motivate our teams, we continue to say France is a country where one can still invest. But of course, it's a wonderful country. I often say it's a Formula 1 car with both feet on the brake. One must believe in France, and above all, our politicians must listen to us. So, we are industrialists. I have indeed created this joint venture with my teams, Thales and Foxconn, around a concept called SIP. These are system-in-packages, which are semiconductors, and they are extremely important for this sovereignty we're talking about, since they will supply defense systems and all types of markets. Moreover, these are not exactly the same semiconductors that STMicroelectronics and other companies make. They are very specific semiconductors on wafers, and it is Foxconn, the Taiwanese company, that brings us the technology so that we can develop it in France for these markets, particularly those involving sovereignty.