France To Spend $8.4 Billion on Digital as Part of Stimulus Plan

The French government unveiled a massive $120 billion stimulus package earlier this week to recover from the economic downturn -- it represents 4% of the country's GDP. As part of this support plan, the government plans to spend a significant chunk of money on all things digital -- startup investment, infrastructure investment and digital transformation. From a report: I interviewed France's digital minister Cedric O earlier today to get some details on how it's going to work. Overall, France will spend $8.4 billion on digital investments. This is a new investment plan for the next two years. It's different from the economic rescue plan that was rolled out earlier this year. That one was designed as a stopgap for the early days of the economic crisis. "With 7 billion euro, I think the digital sector is the sector that is receiving the biggest investment overall compared to all other sectors except the environmental sector," Cedric O said. Ten years ago, the French government launched an investment program dedicated to innovation, from scientific research to R&D spendings. The government is launching the fourth iteration of this program (Programme d'investissements d'avenir). It's a $13 billion investment plan (11 billion euro) and it covers a ton of stuff. But nearly $1 billion (800 million euro) will be dedicated to state aid for French startups over the next couple of years.

Shhh, all insider investments

[rtb61]

Yes the will pour French taxpayer money into the profit margins of their insider buddies, support the party and get hundreds of millions of dollars, as long as some of it comes back to the politicians in offshore tax havens. France is copying the USA, making the rich richer whilst they still can, to the very last second of socio-economic collapse they will be driving their snouts deeper and deeper into the trough.

What to boost industry make FOSS compulsory in government, no funding required, they will chas

Spend it on Linux

[dmay34]

If they were smart they would spend it on migrating the nation away from OS reliance on Google/Apple/Microsoft. Honestly, it kind of amazes me that Europe and Asian nations are so willing to remain locked into reliance on American OS's when there are lots of viable alternatives.

Re:

[hcs_$reboot]

It seems the least effort is to keep these dependencies.

Re:

[dmay34]

I mean, when was the last time "effort" hindered china's nationalism?

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

They're sticking with these dependencies because listening to a clueless OSS zealot on Slashdot who wants countries to waste money and decrease efficiency on a virtue signalling change to their IT infrastructure would be an astoundingly stupid waste of money.

Tried in the US but for 'Green' energy

[schwit1]

It's a loser proposition if their is no demand for your French 'digital' and you can't provide 'digital' at a competitive price

Sign me up!

[msauve]

"France To Spend $8.4 Billion on Digital..."

I'll let France take one of my fingers for US$8.4 billion (even if that's the Euro billion/US million).

Don't laugh

[AncalagonTotof]

Oh please, don't laugh at us.

First: "Digital". A buzz word. Many are using it, not realizing that "digital" should translate into "numérique". And more important, "digital(e)" also more or less means "related to fingers". So, everytime I ear that word, I have two specific fingers that are tickling.

Second, and more important: huge waste of money. It has started during François Hollande "reign" with the Same Ma€ron as minister: CIR (tax rebate related to research) and CICE (tax rebate for c

Spending on Digital

[presearch]

In a strange move, the French Government has decided to spend the entirety of the funds commissioning Orange S.A. to build 167,000 VT-100 terminals.