After weeks in political limbo, France now has a new prime minister, former EU’s Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier. But parliament remains bitterly divided, generating uncertainty for many economic sectors — including the country’s dynamic startup ecosystem, which had so far benefited from public support.
La French Tech isn’t just a term referring to France’s 25,000 startups; it is also an initiative supported by a public administration, the French Tech Mission, whose director, Clara Chappaz, is departing this month as her three-year contract ends, she told Les Échos. The timing is coincidental, but also noteworthy. Her replacement, she told TechCrunch in late August, should hopefully be someone who is “not afraid of change” and sees it as an opportunity.
The role is undoubtedly unique. It’s attached to the Ministry of the Economy and Finance, but with a lean team working out of Station F and with a big mission: to support the structuring and growth of the French startup ecosystem of startups, in France and abroad. It requires someone who is equally able to talk to public officials, politicians, big companies and journalists.
It is now too late to apply, but seeing how it has been described as a “dream job,” there should be enough candidates on the ranks; Chappaz, who won’t be part of the jury, said when we talked in August that she was taking several calls a day from prospective candidates. She likely told them pretty much the same as she told TechCrunch and her LinkedIn followers: That France is “incredibly lucky” to have its French Tech Mission and that her experience at its helm was “exceptional.”
But what happened in the past isn’t indicative of the future, and whoever succeeds Chappaz will operate in a scenario that’s very different from when she took charge in 2021. That’s because La French Tech itself has changed during those years, pushing new priorities for the French Tech Mission.
Chappaz experienced her fair share of change over the last three years, too, and not only because there were three different secretaries of state for digital affairs over that same period; that’s common in a lot of public administrations. The main change had to do with tech itself, and with the macro context: 2024 is quite different from 2021.
Just like elsewhere, French startups went through the ebbs and flows of the pandemic and the fundraising hype that ensued, only to come back to earth a few months later. Geopolitical unrest followed, and alongside came the realization that countries needed industrial champions to rely on.
For the French Tech Mission, which celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2023, this meant aligning with the strategic France 2030 agenda. There came French Tech 2030, with less focus on unicorns, and more on deep tech spinouts and economic impact. Not that it was responsible for the former: President Emmanuel Macron was the one who set out “25 French unicorns” as a goal to reach by 2025. (After reaching that milestone in 2022, he went on to call for 100 unicorns by 2030.)
That France now has scaleups like BlaBlaCar and Doctolib is no small feat, and telling the world certainly did favors to its image. But 10 years after the “unicorn” moniker was coined, global tech has moved on. It was time for France to acknowledge that its startups have changed, too, with the rise of companies like Mistral AI and Pasqal (and the fall of others, like Luko.)
The France Digitale association, which represents startups and investors from the French digital ecosystem, has been well placed to witness this evolution among its members since its creation in 2012. “There are [now] startups in all sectors, in manufacturing, in healthcare, which are also sectors that I think are strategic priorities for the competitiveness of France and for the sovereignty of France and Europe,” its CEO Maya Noël told TechCrunch.
In line with this evolution, Nöel said it might be interesting for Chappaz’s replacement to come from one of these strategic sectors, but that’s no jab at her background (Chappaz joined from Vestiaire Collective, a second-hand fashion marketplace) or at her predecessors. From our conversation with Noël, it transpired that the two structures are “fairly aligned” and have been in “constant dialogue.”
Several initiatives adopted under Chappaz’s leadership reflect what the sector has been lobbying for. One example is “Je Choisis La French Tech,” an initiative that saw 300 companies and 80 institutional players commit to helping double the number of public contracts and purchases from startups. “We have been asking for this for 10 years,” Noël said.
If anything, France Digitale wished things could go faster, for instance on the hot topic of exits (or dearth thereof). Someone with first-hand knowledge of scaleups and international expansion could add value at its helm, but a new director with a public service background might be able to pull strings on the administration side if La French Tech were to lack governmental support, Noël said.
La French Tech Mission has arguments that could play well with different sides of the political support: that startups are directly and indirectly responsible for 1.1 million jobs, and for helping reindustrialize France. Many people also committed to the Parity Pact promoted by Chappaz and her team to foster gender equality in the tech industry. Her successor will have to play these cards well, and we wish them “bonne chance.” That also goes for Chappaz, too, who is expecting her second child and says she hasn’t decided yet what she will do next, but that it’ll have to do with tech innovation.