Chemicals

The French chemicals industry is the 5th biggest producer and 3rd biggest exporter worldwide. It is the second biggest chemicals industry in Europe after Germany, with a turnover of around 60 billion euros and around 194,000 employees (including rubber and tyre manufacturing but excluding pharmaceuticals and the transformation of plastics).

The base chemicals industry is organised around 5 major platforms (the two main ones being Fos-Lavéra in the south and Le Havre-Port-Jérôme in Normandy), several of which still have significant reserves of facilities.

The applied chemicals and speciality chemicals (“parachimie”) sector, with its 57,000 employees, is the second largest in Europe; strong points include the field of fine chemicals (active ingredients for the pharmaceutical industry). The major French held companies include TotalAtofina (4th worldwide for petrochemicals) and Michelin (worldwide leader in the pneumatics industry).

In others industries

France also has many strong points, as can be seen from the long list of leading French companies: Saint-Gobain, world’s leading producer of glass products;

19,500 people employed in R&D in the chemicals sector

Lafarge, world’s leading producer of building materials; Air Liquide, world’s leading producer of industrial gasses. France is also the 3rd leading producer of steel and the 1st leading producer of base aluminium in the European Union. These base products then go on to be transformed. And here again France has much to offer. With its 171,000 employees and strong industrial districts such as Oyonnax and Alençon, the French plastics industry is one of the most important in Europe. French technical expertise is particularly recognized in fields which involve high levels of innovation, such as composite materials or technical textiles.

Finally, French companies are also world leaders in the fields of energy (nuclear energy with Areva, world leader in nuclear fuels, and EDF, leading electrical supply company in the OECD), and water and waste product treatment (Suez, Veolia, Vivendi).

A country open to investors

Foreign companies account for 55.4% of turnover in the speciality chemicals sector, 44.9% in the soaps and perfumes sector, 40% in the base chemicals sector, and 38% in the plastics sector. As well as the leading petrochemicals groups such as

1 international cluster

Shell and ExxonMobil, there are also many companies who specialize in fine and speciality chemicals, such as Rohm & Haas, Toray Soficar, TBI Synthesia, Dupont, BASF, etc. The deregulation of the French energy market has begun to raise interest, as can be seen by the launching in 2006 of various electrical power station projects (by Atel and Verbund in particular). 2006 was also a very active year for the chemicals industry (project from Bluestar for instance), and in the materials industry (Sapa, Oyako, Silpro, etc.).

2 major strengths: skilled manpower and R & D

• A highly qualified workforce. As well as university and generalized courses, there are 17 specialized chemical engineering schools in France, including: ENSCPB (Bordeaux), ENSCPESPCI-ESCOM (Paris), CPE-ITEHC (Lyon), EGIM (Marseille), and INSA (Rouen).
• A large capacity for research and innovation.There are, for example, 19,500 people employed in R&D activities within companies in the various chemicals, plastics and rubber sectors, which devote a total of 2 billion euros to their research activities. Several competitiveness clusters have been set up in the chemicals-plastics fields, including Exelera (chemicals – environment), Plasturgie in the Rhône-Alpes region, and MIPI (new materials) in the Lorraine region.