DEJEUNER DE PLACE chaired by ROLAND LESCURE | Paris Finance Forum 2026

Surtout, vous êtes très heureux,

parce

que souvent vous avez juste un guest star. Aujourd'hui,

nous

avons deux. Nous avons un guest star principale pour commencer, avec Roland Lescure, et un autre guest star avec Emmanuel Moulin. Et ce sera son premier appareil dans son nouveau job de gouverneur de la Banque de France. Premièrement. Seconde,

vous

êtes obligés de être très, très silencieux.

Please.

Parce que c'est un privilège d'avoir Roland Lescure.

He

just landed from Montreal this morning.

The

jet lag is very hard for him.

And

so please, be very silent. It's not necessary to present Roland Lescure.

It

is an expert, because as you know, in his previous life, he was a financial expert in Caisse des dépôts et de Placement du Québec. And far before, he was also, I remember, in Caisse des dépôts from France. So he is an expert. Then, he is a politician. And third, he is a diplomat, because he just succeeded in the G7 of Finance Minister, which was, from both a lot of observers, one of the best G7 ever organized.

So

please, welcome Roland Lescure, with a lot of silence.

So,

wow, what an introduction. Est-ce qu'on peut applaudir Augustin de Romanet, quand même, d'abord et avant tout ?

D

'abord, parce qu'il a été élu et réélu et très bien réélu à la tête d'Europlace. Et parce qu'il m'a fait une introduction, évidemment, qui m'a énormément flatté. Donc, rien que pour ça, merci beaucoup, Augustin. Thank you very much, Augustin. Congratulations, again, for your re-election. You're a great chairman of Europlus, and the success of today's event is a tribute to your work. So thank you. Thank you very much. Hello, everyone.

So

you can speak, but just not too loud. Otherwise, I might fall asleep, because as Augustin said, I spent the night in the plane. I would like to say hello to my predecessor, Eric Lombard, who's here, and thank him very much, and tell him how easy it was for him this time last year.

At

that time, there was just a trade war to deal with. And if you had been told, and if you guys had been told this time last year,

that

today we would meet

in

the midst

of

a Gulf War,

in

the midst of a time where interest rates have risen quite a bit,

in

the midst of a time where the trade war is still going on,

in

the midst of a time where Frontier AI is just probably making you lose sleep every night,

you

probably wouldn't have believed it.

And if

you had been told that, and also that the S&P 500 would probably be at this top, ever,

you

suddenly would have thought that whoever was telling you that was either crazy or

maybe

a visionary.

This

is the world we live in.

This

is the world you guys live in every day.

This

is a world in which the risks are probably higher than ever, geopolitical, economic, financial.

And

this is a risk where you guys are in charge of helping us managing it. So for this, thank you very much.

I'd

like to start by

maybe

reassuring you.

As

Augustin said, we have a new governor of the Bank of France. We had our first meeting this morning with Marianne Barbalayani, who's sitting on his left. We had the Haut Conseil de la Stabilité Financière,

and

we came out of it

quite

reassured, quite reassured. And I can see the governor of the Bank of France checking in the right way. So that's good. If the governor of the Bank of France says that, well, I'm quite reassured. I am quite reassured.

And

why were we quite reassured? Because despite all the risks I've alluded to, despite all the potential volatility we're faced with,

you

guys are in good shape.

The

French financial system is in quite good shape. So it's facing headwinds, as we all are.

But

we've all collectively entered this crisis

with

a pretty strong relative position. And when I say you guys, it's all of you guys. Because what I'm the most proud of when I think of Paris Europlast

is

that we do it all.

We

have great banks, and I can see some of them sitting at this table, and I can see a few logos at the tables as well.

We

have a fantastic insurance company's market and amongst the leaders in Europe, for sure.

We

have great marketplaces, great market infrastructure. We have fantastic asset managers.

And

all of these

make

France,

make

Paris,

one

of the most

powerful

financial places in the world. And for this, of course, I'm very proud.

Donc

je voudrais vraiment vous remercier tous et toutes pour votre contribution au fait qu'aujourd'hui, Paris Europlast, la place parisienne, est une grande place européenne, une grande place mondiale. Et je pense que vous pouvez vous applaudir pour ça. Merci à tous et à toutes.

Bon,

maintenant que je vous ai bien chauffé, il va falloir m'aider.

There's

no free lunch. C'est ça qu'on dit. OK? Because those risks we're faced with

are

massive challenges for all of us, but they're first and foremost massive challenges

for

politicians. Churchill once said, you should never let a good crisis go to waste. We have to use those crises we're faced with

to

come out of them

even

stronger.

We

did come into the Gulf crisis, the Iron War, better prepared, they exposed another economies to what's happening in the world. And why is that so?

Because

before us, more than 50 years ago, our predecessors decided together that if we don't have any oil, we should have ideas. And at that time, the country together embarked

on

a great historical program that led France

to

have less exposure to hydrocarbure. At that time, there was 90% of our economy that was depending on the then Gulf.

Now

there's only 60%. And we've decided,

and

you guys are going to have to help us on that front, that at the next crisis, because there will be one, we should be even lower.

So

we should invest

in

nuclear energy.

We

should invest

in

renewable energies. we should invest in the electrification of our economy

to

make sure that when and if it happens,

we

are even stronger than we are today, less exposed than we are today, more stable than we are today.

And

for some of you who were at

the

Elyse Palace a couple of weeks ago,

you

know that it's a very important project for the president himself because he's convinced

that

going forward, France should again be more resilient and less exposed, but also, even though that word is not that fashionable anymore, address climate changes because that's something we owe to our children.

So

electrification, energy transition

is

one way of answering that crisis. And for this,

we

need all of you guys.

The

other challenge we're faced with, obviously, is the geopolitical one. America is where it is. America's governance is where it is.

We

are on our own.

Or

at least we have to be prepared to be on our own.

And

that requires massive investments in industry and defense. And for this, again, you know, France is better prepared and less exposed than others because we've had our own defense industry for a long time.

And

I have to admit that for years,

you

guys were not really allowed to look at it. Taxonomy, regulation,

probably

pressure from your clients,

led

you to, you know, look at the defense industry with a six-foot pole.

Those

days are over. Again, we need you.

But

I know you're convinced that you also need to invest in those industries. They are part of what makes France a pride nation.

They're

also part, despite the very recent

turnaround

on the fighter jets, they're also part of a massive European project we have

to

conduct together.

So

anything we do to make sure that we can invest more in our defense industry,

the

big guys, the ones that are quoted on Euronext and others, dear Stéphane, but also the smaller ones that are investing in the future of European defense, they're in you.

So

you're going to have to help them going forward in private equity, in debt, in public equities to make sure, again, that we can finance this historical effort that is going to make us more resilient, stronger, and hopefully more prosperous.

And

obviously, the third challenge we're all faced with, I alluded to, Frontier AI and the impact it may have on all of us.

And

on this,

I

want to make it very clear, we've had this discussion in the G7, we want to make sure that,

and

I think they understand that,

the

models that are now coming out of the US cannot be a risk for all of us. We are so interconnected, you guys are so interconnected with

our

US counterparts that we need to address this massive risk together.

But

AI is not just a risk, it's an amazing opportunity, provided the two things, that we can make sure that

traditional

companies take it on board and make sure that it enhances their productivity,

but

more importantly, that we are also champions of AI. And on this, we also need you,

because

we have fantastic companies, we have a willingness to invest more in data centers, we have a willingness to use our carbon-free energy to fund

a

whole AI ecosystem, a whole quantum computing ecosystem, which we have the ways and means of carrying together, again,

as

a country, but also as a continent.

So

I'm going to lead you for that as well.

So

I hope that you guys are happy that you are having lunch with us today, because I'm going to be at the back there collecting checks when we all go.

More

seriously, I am convinced we can do it. I'm convinced we can do it and we need to help you do it.

We

need to move forward on regulation, less of it rather than more of it.

We

need to move forward on integration, more of it, not less of it. You guys need to help us on having more integration, but we need to do the first steps. And the good news is that a couple of weeks ago I was in Berlin with my German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch and Polish counterpart and we decided that it was time to make your life easier,

to

make sure that European market integration

was

just, sorry, not a dream or project that a few finance ministers have spoken about in the past few years,

but

that it was time to speed it up,

to

make sure that on market supervision, on securitization, on investments,

we

could move together and move it faster. So

I'm

going to Luxembourg on Friday. I'm going to have a very important in Confine meeting. Then there's a summit from the heads of state

and

I know,

I

hope, but I know that we're going to move some headwinds to make sure that you guys then can become true European institutions that are financing the three challenges I've alluded to for France but also for Europe.

Last

thing before I leave the floor to the real guest star of today, Emmanuel Mounin, which I'd like to warmly, warmly congratulate for his appointment and maybe one last time because we've been doing it a lot over the last couple of months. Thank François for his great contributions. I think we should clap the two of them very warmly.

I'm

going to say one last thing.

Maybe

the second most important event of the month of June after Paris-Europlace is VivaTech. VivaTech has become a very important landmark event for global technology transition.

And

for this, I'm going to need you because on VivaTech next week, I'm going to announce the launch of TB3, the third generation of the TB initiative, which most of you have contributed to for TB1 and TB2. Fantastic initiative that the Germans want to launch now, that we want to launch at the European Union, that allows us to finance innovation in an interesting process that you probably know about. So next week, I'm planning to announce the TB3 initiative with great commitments for you guys. So again, I'll be waiting at the back of the entrance there. You can give me your commitments and I'll make sure that I announce a big figure next time. Next week, the Germans are Guests of Honor.

So I want to be able to tell them, we're doing it, you need to do it too.

I

won't be longer because we're all waiting for the real Guests of Honor, but I would like to thank you very much for everything you're doing, Augustin and the others, to make sure that Paris-Europlace is the place to be. It will be next year.

I

don't know who the finance minister will be. One thing is for sure, is also, or she's also going to have a tough time. Thank you very much and bon appétit.