French industry has fallen from 20% to 10% of GDP. Yet industrial investment announcements keep multiplying in France — new greenfield plants and modernized existing sites alike. Are these manufacturers crazy? No, argues [Aymeric Renaud, President of Schneider Electric France — TO BE CONFIRMED] in his keynote at Tech For Industry Show 2026, at Paris Expo Porte de Versailles. His thesis: the convergence of four major transformations — electrification, digitalization, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity — connected by data, is what builds a competitive and resilient industrial base in France.

Geopolitical tensions, raw material access, energy volatility, demographic decline, administrative complexity: there is no shortage of reasons to doubt France's industrial future. Yet the assets are real — starting with abundant, competitive, low-carbon electricity. France exports 92 TWh of electricity (around €5 billion) while importing €60 billion of fossil fuels every year. The keynote's core message: industrial performance comes from converging transformations, not managing them in silos. The common thread? Structured, contextualized data to drive decisions.

China has become the world's first "electro-state" by massively electrifying its industry, while Europe and the US have stagnated. Energy is now a direct competitiveness factor for manufacturers.

Solar panels, EV charging, storage capacity: digital tools continuously arbitrate — every 15 minutes — between local production, grid purchases and load shedding, based on price signals and site occupancy.

By converging energy and process data, a manufacturer can modulate production according to grid signals. The stated result: 10–30% energy savings depending on site maturity.

Nearly 70% of companies believe they have completed their digital transformation… but only 30% of SMEs. Yet no large French manufacturer can compete without a solid base of SMEs and mid-caps alongside it. Another major shift: software-defined automation, which decouples hardware from software and opens the door to generative AI for industrial code — an area where China holds a significant lead over Europe.

Using AVEVA solutions, a brewer was tracking 15 production parameters — humanly impossible to optimize. Digital data collection and analysis standardized quality, eliminated washing cycles between batches (water and energy savings) and increased production from 8 to 12 brews per day, with payback measured in months.

Generative AI adoption in industry jumped from under 3% to 35% of companies between two editions of the same study. But the prerequisite remains unchanged: without contextualized, structured data, no AI transformation is possible. What comes next is already visible: agentic AI, orchestration, and ultimately the autonomous factory, able to decide and act on control systems.

The European NIS2 directive concerns around 15,000 industrial sites in France. Two possible readings: a regulatory constraint… or an opportunity.

French cement manufacturer Vicat (16 plants worldwide, €1 billion investment per plant) deployed probes, firewalls and sensors for cyber compliance. The data collected, processed in a digital factory, generated 6% productivity gains in two years — the equivalent of one additional cement plant's output, and €1 billion in avoided CAPEX.

The speaker talks as a manufacturer: 15,000 employees in France, including over 6,000 factory workers, across 25 production sites.

Replacing gas boilers with heat pumps, induction brazing, green hydrogen, 20 GWh of on-site solar production: electrification is also a resilience factor against grid outage risks. On the supplier side, a cohort launched in 2021 with 1,000 strategic suppliers halved their carbon footprint (scopes 1 and 2) in five years; the initiative is being relaunched in 2025 with 1,500 suppliers.

The rule is strict: no digitalization without a lean foundation, and no deployment without ROI under 2 years. Example from Normandy: on a 1980s machine — a bottleneck in contactor production — vibration and temperature sensors, installed thanks to operator knowledge, turned 4 hours of breakdown maintenance into a 10-minute preventive intervention. ROI: under 6 months.

A critical assembly line requiring 20 operators was reshored to France with just 3 operators thanks to automation, complemented by AI-powered visual inspection. The result: a line as competitive in France as in Asia, with mirror sites across two geographic regions for supply chain resilience. In three years, 110 out of 180 factories were equipped with data collection infrastructure.

Three conditions emerge from the keynote:

Having chaired the government working group on electrification of uses, the speaker shares three conclusions: electricity will cost around €55/MWh in France in 2027, versus €95 in Germany and €100–105 in Italy — a decisive competitive advantage; grid connections (RTE, Enedis) must be simplified and regulatory visibility improved (energy savings certificates); and electricity must be "re-enchanted" after the 2022 price shock.

Why do manufacturers invest in France despite the constraints? Because of low-carbon, competitive electricity (€55/MWh expected in 2027, versus €95 in Germany), a reliable grid, and competitiveness gains enabled by converging electrification, digitalization and AI.

What ROI can be expected from factory digitalization? The cases presented at TFIS 2026 show ROI from 6 months (predictive maintenance) to 2 years (deployment rule), with 10–30% energy savings and up to +50% output on certain lines.

Is the NIS2 directive a constraint or an opportunity? Both: the Vicat example shows cyber compliance can become a data infrastructure generating +6% productivity.

This conference was recorded at Tech For Industry Show 2026, the B2B trade show for industrial transformation (Smart Manufacturing, AI, Supply Chain) at Paris Expo Porte de Versailles. Watch the full keynote video above, and join us on May 19–20, 2027, Hall 7, for the next edition.