Even as his country still has no government, Emmanuel Macron is making his pitch to Wall Street: Invest in France — every democracy has its ups and downs.
The French president, in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, hosted a breakfast Tuesday with some of Wall Street’s biggest names, including Blackstone Inc. Chief Executive Officer Steve Schwarzman, Bank of America Corp CEO Brian Moynihan and John Zito, co-president of Apollo Global Management Inc's asset-management arm.
While acknowledging domestic “constraints,” Macron touted France’s solid institutions and the reforms he implemented since taking office in 2017, including on pensions and unemployment benefits, according to two people who sat in on the gathering at the French consulate.
The executives who attended the meeting — which also included Adebayo Ogunlesi, the CEO of BlackRock Inc's Global Infrastructure Partners, Citigroup Inc Chair John Dugan and JPMorgan Chase & Co asset and wealth management CEO Mary Erdoes — didn’t discuss Macron’s recognition of Palestine as a state on Monday.
French businesses face heightened uncertainty from a prolonged political crisis that started with Macron’s decision to call snap elections last year. His gamble led to a deeply divided National Assembly, toppling two prime ministers in less than a year, and has started to weigh on economic activity.
Macron, a former investment banker, has made a point of luring foreign CEOs to Versailles each year for a meeting dubbed Choose France.
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On Tuesday, he fielded a question about the possibility of reviving the French wealth tax that he scrapped to replace it with a real estate tax, according to the two attendees, who asked not to be identified to speak candidly about the meeting.
The proposal is known in France as the “Zucman tax,” named after French economist Gabriel Zucman, who was educated in the US. Macron joked that Zucman was a US import to France and said the priority was to lower public expenses rather than new taxation.
But having lost his majority in parliament, he may not be in a position to decide what the next government will do.
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Earlier this month, Macron appointed a new premier, Sebastien Lecornu, who’s now negotiating a budget plan with opposition lawmakers. Many of them are pushing for tax increases on business and the wealthy to help reduce what has become the euro area’s widest deficit.
The Socialist party has especially seen its importance increase since far-right leader Marine Le Pen said she was ready to oust Lecornu.
Macron touted rule of law in France and hailed the country as a safe haven to invest in energy, transportation and housing infrastructure as well as tech, noting the reputation of French engineers and the ambitions of French artificial-intelligence company Mistral.
Rather than discussing France, Macron’s guests quizzed him about the European Union’s legislation, with one even describing it as institutional hostility, one of the people said.
The French president responded by emphasizing his good relationship with Germany’s conservative chancellor, Friedrich Merz. Both have pledged to cut red tape and support a plan for the bloc to invest more, known as the Draghi report.
The French push for a reworking of European regulations, starting with ESG rules, comes as rival companies in the US look poised to enter a phase of deregulation.
