--- slug: choose-france title: Choose France fiche_model: llm-content-v1 last_verified: '2026-09-03' eventsindex_id: EI-07138 canonical_url: https://eventsindex.org/events/choose-france.html next_edition_year: 2027 date_start: null date_end: null venue: "Chateau de Versailles, Versailles, France" city: Versailles country: France organiser: Presidency of the French Republic, convened with the French Government organiser_url: https://www.elysee.fr b2b: true vector: sector: - economic-forums audience: - government - corporate - industry format: - summit purpose: - networking geography_scope: - France meta_description: "Choose France: invitation-only summit for foreign investors at the Chateau de Versailles, convened by the French Presidency. 9th edition held 1 June 2026." editorial_take: 'Founded by Emmanuel Macron in 2018 and convened each year by the Presidency with the French Government, Choose France gathers around 200 foreign business leaders behind closed doors at Versailles to announce a single day''s tally of investment pledges; independent reporting has repeatedly found that the headline figures mix firm commitments with intentions and that many announced factory projects never open.' language: en schema_version: v6.0 --- # Choose France > *Each year since 2018, the French Presidency has gathered foreign chief executives behind closed doors at the Chateau de Versailles for a single day, to announce that year's tally of investment pledges in France.* | DATES | VENUE | ORGANISER | ATTENDANCE | |---|---|---|---| | **Not yet announced** , last edition 1 June 2026 | **Chateau de Versailles, Versailles, France** | **Presidency of the French Republic, with the French Government** | **Over 200, from nearly 50 countries** (2026 edition) | ## What is Choose France? Choose France is an annual, invitation-only summit created in 2018 by President Emmanuel Macron to bring foreign multinational chief executives to the Chateau de Versailles for one day, where the French Presidency and Government present the country's investment case and announce a tally of foreign investment decisions timed to the event. It is not a trade show, conference series or ticketed forum: there is no published agenda of panels, no exhibition floor and no open registration. The most recently completed edition, the ninth, was held on 1 June 2026. A separate, differently branded event under the same "Choose France" name, aimed at French rather than foreign companies, was held once in Paris in November 2025 (see "Are there other Choose France editions outside Versailles?" below); it is not the same summit. ## When and where does Choose France take place in 2027? No date for a 2027 edition has been announced; the most recent completed edition, the ninth, took place on 1 June 2026. As of 3 September 2026, neither the Elysee nor Business France has published a date for a tenth edition, and past editions have moved around the calendar (January in 2018, 2019 and 2020, June in 2021 and 2026, July in 2022, May in 2023, 2024 and 2025), so the month cannot be inferred from the pattern. Every edition since 2018 has been held at the Chateau de Versailles, Versailles, about 20 kilometres southwest of Paris, and there is no signal that this would change for a tenth edition. ## Who organises Choose France? The summit is convened by the President of the French Republic together with members of the French Government; the Elysee press office issues a dossier de presse for each edition. Business France, the national trade and investment agency, is described in official communication as accompanying investors through their projects "from sourcing to implementation" as part of the wider Team France Invest network, but it is not named as a co-organiser of the summit itself in the sources reviewed. This corrects the seed record, which listed Business France as co-organiser alongside the Presidency: that pairing overstates Business France's role, which is investor support rather than convening the event. ## Who attends Choose France? The ninth edition, on 1 June 2026, brought together over 200 foreign business leaders from nearly 50 countries, an organiser-reported figure with no independent audit found. Attendance is by personal invitation from the Presidency; there is no public application process and no published breakdown of attendees by sector or company size. Recent editions have run 180 to 200-plus foreign chief executives, alongside French government ministers and, in some years, French corporate leaders. ## What's new at Choose France in 2027? Not answerable: no 2027 edition has been announced. For context, the most recently completed edition (the ninth, 1 June 2026) set a single-edition record of 93 billion euros across 71 projects and an estimated 15,600 jobs, a total the government said exceeded the combined total of the eight previous editions (nearly 88 billion euros since 2018). The 2026 tally was dominated by artificial intelligence data centre investment: SoftBank alone accounted for an initial 45 billion euros toward 3.1 GW of AI data centre capacity in the Hauts-de-France region by 2031 (about 8,600 construction jobs and 900 operating jobs), and Brookfield, through its Data4 platform, raised its own AI infrastructure commitment in France to 30 billion euros. For the first time on record, the summit was preceded by "Choose France Days" (29 to 31 May 2026), an open-house weekend at roughly 100 industrial and technology sites run by about 92 companies. This record edition also came against a backdrop of declining foreign direct investment into France generally, reported down 17 percent year on year in 2025, a fall sharper than the wider European trend. ## What's on the Choose France 2027 programme? No 2027 programme has been published. The recurring structure, as run for the 2026 edition, is a single day at Versailles built around a plenary opening, the President's remarks, and the public announcement of that year's aggregated investment figures; the government's press materials do not publish a detailed session-by-session schedule of the closed-door proceedings, so the internal running order (working sessions, ministerial meetings, roundtables) is not documented in the sources reviewed. ## What session formats does Choose France use? Not documented in detail. The core format is a closed-door, single-day summit at Versailles: there is no published breakout track structure, no parallel stages and no public list of session titles. Since 2026, the summit has been preceded by "Choose France Days," a separate multi-day open-house format in which participating companies open roughly 100 factories, laboratories and other sites to the public across France, run on different premises from the Versailles day itself. ## What side events run alongside Choose France? "Choose France Days," an open-house weekend across the country in which about 92 companies opened roughly 100 industrial and technology sites to the public, ran for the first time on record from 29 to 31 May 2026, immediately ahead of the ninth summit. Publicised sectors covered included aerospace, pharmaceuticals, artificial intelligence and craft brewing. No other public-facing side event tied to the Versailles day itself is documented in the sources reviewed. ## How much do Choose France tickets cost? No ticket exists. Choose France is invitation-only; the Presidency and Government select attendees directly, and no fee, ticket tier or public registration form is published. ## How to become a speaker at Choose France? Not possible through open application. Choose France has no published speaker programme in the conference sense: the President and government ministers deliver remarks, and no external call for speakers, pitch process or public agenda of named presenters is documented. ## How to become a sponsor or exhibitor at Choose France? Not applicable. Choose France runs no exhibition space and sells no sponsorship packages; it is a government-convened summit, not a trade show. ## Who sponsors Choose France in 2027? None. Choose France has no sponsorship programme. The multinational companies present are guests announcing their own investment decisions in France, not paying sponsors or exhibitors, and no sponsor or partner list is published for any edition reviewed. ## What types of companies are majority represented at Choose France? For the 2026 edition, the confirmed investment announcements were dominated by artificial intelligence infrastructure and data centre operators: SoftBank (with a Schneider Electric partnership for a modular data centre production hub at the port of Dunkirk, about 350 jobs) and Brookfield's Data4 platform (AI campus at Cambrai, a new site at Escaudain) account for the bulk of the 93 billion euros announced. Beyond 2026, official retrospectives cite pharmaceuticals, automotive and consumer goods multinationals among past participants, but a year-by-year, independently confirmed company roster across all nine editions was not found in the sources reviewed. Independent investigative reporting (L'Usine Nouvelle) found that only 13 percent of 2025 projects were genuinely new site openings, the rest being extensions of existing French operations. ## How do you get press accreditation for Choose France? Not publicly disclosed. No open accreditation form or press-pass process for Choose France is published by the Elysee, Business France or the government press office; coverage from the closed-door event appears to run through the Elysee's own press pool and press releases rather than a public accreditation route. ## What press coverage has Choose France received? Institutional sources publish a dossier de presse and press releases for every edition: the Elysee (elysee.fr), the general government portal (info.gouv.fr) and the Direction generale des Entreprises (entreprises.gouv.fr). Business press covers the headline investment figures each edition, including CNews, Le Journal des Entreprises and Forbes France. Independent investigative coverage has directly questioned those figures: L'Usine Nouvelle examined projects announced between 2018 and 2025 and found that of 49 projects involving new production sites, data centres or research facilities, only 18 had actually opened as factories and 12 had been abandoned; franceinfo and Next.ink have carried similar analyses. ## How reliable is the reported press coverage of Choose France? Three tiers, by source. Organiser-published: the Elysee's press dossiers and Business France's media releases state the government's own investment tally and are institutional communication, not independent verification. Independent business press: outlets such as CNews, Le Journal des Entreprises and Forbes France largely repeat the official tally with light context, without their own audit of project completion. Independent and directly critical: L'Usine Nouvelle's investigation (18 of 49 examined site-creation projects actually opened, 2018 to 2025) and quotes from economist Thomas Grjebine directly challenge the headline figures; Business France, asked for a fuller breakdown, told L'Usine Nouvelle it could not disclose more, citing confidentiality obligations to individual companies, and said separately that it could not provide a total jobs figure created since 2018. ## Who should skip Choose France? Anyone expecting an open conference: there is no ticket, no public registration and no speaker application process. Companies without an existing, active investment discussion with the French state have no documented path to a seat in the room. Journalists wanting first-hand access to the closed-door proceedings, rather than the published press releases and dossiers, will not get it through a public accreditation process, because none is documented. ## Where does Choose France sit in the economic forums calendar? Choose France is structurally different from multi-day, multi-stakeholder economic forums such as Ambrosetti Forum or Economic Forum Karpacz: it is a single day, government-convened, with no published panel programme and no independent think-tank content behind it. Its fixed point in the annual calendar is the French government's economic-diplomacy cycle rather than a forum circuit: editions have clustered in spring (May, June, July across recent years), and government communication routinely pairs the summit's investment tally with the EY Attractiveness Survey ranking of Europe's most attractive countries for investment, published in the same window each year (France ranked first for a seventh consecutive year in the 2026 cycle, per the government's own citation). ## Are there other Choose France editions outside Versailles? Yes, one distinct spin-off. On 17 November 2025, the government held the first "Choose France, Edition France" at the Maison de la Chimie in Paris, bringing together about 150 French companies, professional federations and union and employer organisations to highlight domestic investment by French firms, reversing the original summit's foreign-investment focus. It is a separate event under a related name and does not recur on the same footing as the Versailles summit; no second edition of it was found in the sources reviewed. Regional promotional pages run by Business France (for example, targeting Sub-Saharan African business leaders) invite attendance at the Versailles summit itself rather than describing a separate regional edition. ## What language is Choose France conducted in? Not publicly disclosed. No Elysee release, government dossier or Business France coverage reviewed specifies the summit's working language or interpretation arrangements for foreign delegates. ## Can you attend Choose France remotely, or watch sessions afterward? No live public stream of the closed-door proceedings is documented. After each edition, the Elysee and Business France media units publish an edited video of the President's remarks after the fact (for example, the eighth edition's speech is posted on Business France's media site); the working sessions themselves are not made available live or as replay. ## What is Choose France's refund and cancellation policy? Not applicable. No ticket is sold, so no refund or cancellation policy exists. ## Is Choose France accessible for attendees with disabilities? Not publicly disclosed for summit attendees specifically. The Chateau de Versailles, as a national heritage site open to the public year-round, maintains its own general visitor accessibility provisions, but no accessibility statement has been published for Choose France as a closed-door event. ## How do you get to the Chateau de Versailles? The Chateau de Versailles sits about 20 kilometres southwest of central Paris. The RER C line serves Versailles Chateau Rive Gauche station, a short walk from the palace; SNCF Transilien trains from Paris Montparnasse serve Versailles Chantiers, a longer walk or short taxi ride away. Paris Orly Airport is about 25 kilometres away and Charles de Gaulle Airport about 50 kilometres away. As an invitation-only government event, on-site access for the summit itself is controlled separately from the palace's general visitor entrances. ## Why does Choose France matter despite having no public programme? *Because it is the French Presidency's single clearest annual instrument for putting foreign chief executives directly in front of the head of state and the government for one day, at a moment officials choose to align with favourable independent signals such as the EY Attractiveness Survey ranking. Whatever the accuracy of the investment tally announced on the day, the summit itself functions as a scheduled, repeatable act of economic diplomacy, and the 2026 edition's tilt toward AI data centre capacity (SoftBank, Brookfield) shows it tracking where large capital is actually moving in Europe that year.* ## Why should a reader treat Choose France's investment figures with care? *Because the headline number announced each year is a government tally of decisions still described by officials as unaudited "organiser figures," and the one independent attempt to check it against reality found a large gap: of 49 announced projects involving new sites between 2018 and 2025, only 18 had actually opened as factories, with 12 abandoned. Business France itself has said it cannot provide a full breakdown of outcomes, citing company confidentiality, or a total jobs figure since the summit's 2018 launch. Read each year's headline billions as a snapshot of intent and negotiation at a fixed point in time, not as a verified record of capital that has since been spent.* ## Where can I find official information about Choose France? No single, persistent official website is dedicated to the summit itself: choosefrance.fr is a separate country-branding campaign site (Business France's "Make it Iconic" attractiveness campaign) and carries no summit-specific content. The most reliable sources are the Elysee's per-edition press releases and dossiers de presse (elysee.fr, for example elysee.fr/en/emmanuel-macron/2026/06/01/9th-choose-france-summit), the general government news portal (info.gouv.fr), the Direction generale des Entreprises (entreprises.gouv.fr) and Business France's media hub (en.media.businessfrance.fr/choose-france.html). --- **Last verified:** 2026-09-03 **Next review:** 2026-12-01 **Notes:** Created from a seed record carrying only identity fields (name, city, country, sector, and an organiser/site pairing flagged as unverified). Verified against elysee.fr (per-edition press releases for the 7th, 8th and 9th editions), fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choose_France (editions timeline, cross-checked against elysee.fr where possible), info.gouv.fr, entreprises.gouv.fr, bigmedia.bpifrance.fr, businessfrance.fr media hub, and independent press (CNews, Le Journal des Entreprises, franceinfo, L'Usine Nouvelle, Next.ink) for the critical figures. Two seed errors corrected here, to be corrected in the database separately: organiser listed Business France as co-organiser alongside the Presidency, when sourced material describes Business France as an investor-support agency rather than a summit co-organiser; organiser_url pointed to info.gouv.fr, a general government news portal with no summit-specific content, rather than to any organiser's own site (corrected here to elysee.fr, the Presidency's official site, though no dedicated summit site exists at all: choosefrance.fr is a separate branding campaign unrelated to the event, confirmed by direct inspection). The ninth edition (1 June 2026) is documented as the most recent completed edition; no tenth edition date has been announced as of 3 September 2026, so date_start, date_end and the when-where/whats-new/programme/who-sponsors headings use 2027 as an estimated next-edition year (last known year plus one), not a confirmed date. This will make date_start/date_end fail validate_frontmatter.py's required-field check when this file moves to content/, since the check treats a null value as a missing field; that is expected under the unknown-date rule and needs a baseline entry, not a guessed date. Not verified: any 2027 programme or date; the exact internal running order of the closed-door day; press accreditation process; working language; accessibility provisions; whether "Choose France, Edition France" (November 2025, Paris) will recur. Company-level attendance lists beyond the 2026 investment announcements (SoftBank, Schneider Electric, Brookfield/Data4) were not independently confirmed for other editions and are deliberately not presented as a roster.