The list of strategic sectors subject to foreign investment screening in France has never been exhaustive and never will be. That is why the Committee for the Evaluation and Monitoring of Public Policies (Comité d’évaluation et de contrôle des politiques publiques), in a report submitted to the National Assembly on 22 May 2025, proposed various amendments to the system currently in force. The speed of technological change and shifting vulnerabilities make it impossible to fix the scope once and for all. What was not strategic yesterday may be so today: artificial intelligence is the most striking example. Changes to the scope are therefore less a matter of principle than of timing and method.
What Article R. 151-3 of the Monetary and Financial Code currently covers
The list of strategic sectors is set out in Article R. 151-3 of the Monetary and Financial Code (code monétaire et financier), as amended by Decree No. 2023-1293 of 28 December 2023. It covers 24 areas, which can be grouped into three broad categories.
The first covers activities that are sensitive by nature: the production of weapons, munitions, powders and explosive substances intended for military purposes, dual-use goods and technologies, cryptology services, and R&D activities relating to critical technologies (cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, robotics, additive manufacturing, semiconductors, quantum technologies, energy storage, biotechnologies, low-carbon energy production and photonics).
The second category covers infrastructure, goods or services essential to guaranteeing the integrity, security or continuity of energy and water supply, transport, electronic communications, space operations, police and gendarmerie missions, the extraction and recycling of critical raw materials, and security activities in prisons.
The third category concerns dual activities, such as companies manufacturing aeronautical parts for civil and military aviation.
It is noteworthy that R&D activities in artificial intelligence are already within the scope, but solely from the angle of research and development. Activities involving the deployment of AI (provision of services, software publishing, infrastructure services) are not explicitly included.
The new frontiers of foreign investment screening.
The parliamentary report of 22 May 2025 identifies several categories of activity which, according to its authors, should soon be added to the list in Article R. 151-3. At this stage, these recommendations are forward-looking law, but they outline the scope of tomorrow and are already of interest to investors active in these sectors.
Digital platforms and social networks are the first target. The acquisition of a digital platform or social network already falls under the jurisdiction of the US CFIUS. In France, such activities are not currently specifically protected under foreign investment (IEF) screening, even though they may enable the large-scale capture of French citizens’ personal data. The report recommends adding them directly to the Monetary and Financial Code.
Data centres are the subject of a similar recommendation.
Under current law, data processing, transmission or storage activities are already covered by Article R. 151-3 I 11°, but only insofar as their compromise would be likely to undermine one of the other strategic activities listed. This protection is therefore conditional and derivative, not autonomous. The report recommends remedying this by explicitly adding data centres to the list, which would protect them as such, independently of any link with another sensitive activity.
Banking and financial activities are also in the spotlight. The sector already benefits from protection through prudential supervision by the sector regulators (ACPR, ECB). It is also included in the list of operators of vital importance coordinated by the SGDSN, but this protection covers only fifteen major banking and financial institutions. Fintech SMEs, mid-sized companies and start-ups that may tomorrow play a strategic role in payment infrastructure or in financing sovereign sectors are not included. Italy and Germany have already brought banking and financial activities within their own screening mechanisms.
The cultural sector is mentioned, general news media being already covered. Directly listing the cultural sector in the legislation would make it possible to include the content industries (audiovisual production, publishing), control of which by foreign entities may be a vector of influence.
Finally, real estate investments, currently absent from the Monetary and Financial Code, are raised in the report in situations of proximity to sensitive sites or of access to vital resources such as water and agricultural land. Here again, since FIRRMA in 2018 the US CFIUS has had explicit jurisdiction over this type of transaction.
The European reform of Regulation 2019/452: an EU framework in transition
These national developments are taking place in an EU context that is itself changing. In January 2024, the European Commission adopted a proposal to revise Regulation 2019/452 of 19 March 2019, which establishes the European framework for cooperation on the screening of foreign direct investment. The proposal provides in particular for an obligation on all Member States to set up an FDI screening mechanism, the extension of its scope to new investments (greenfield investments), and the inclusion of a precise list of strategic assets and critical technologies to be subject to enhanced monitoring. On 8 April 2025, the European Parliament’s Committee on International Trade adopted the revised rules, including an extension of screening obligations to the media, critical raw materials and transport infrastructure sectors. The text has yet to be examined in plenary before entering into negotiations between the Member States.
For companies active in the sectors concerned, changes to the scope of foreign investment (IEF) screening must therefore be considered at two levels: the national level, with the possibility of an amendment to Article R. 151-3 of the Monetary and Financial Code following the recommendations of the parliamentary report, and the European level, with the future implementation of the revised Regulation. In both cases, the direction is the same: a widening scope, a tougher procedure and a growing need for legal anticipation.
