France has nearly 140,000 exporting companies

The scale of France’s trade deficit – which goes from record to record, reflecting the deindustrialization and the lack of competitiveness of the country – should not overshadow certain performances of French SMEs and ETIs internationally. This is the main message that Team France Export wants to convey in its 2021 annual report. Admittedly, the balance of trade in goods plunged into the red to the tune of 85 billion last year and will probably approach 150 billion this year, but several encouraging points have been noted by the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Team France Export (the network of chambers of commerce, Bpifrance and Business France essentially).

First of all, 2021 still ended with a rebound in French exports, after a year 2020 marked by a sharp slowdown in world trade in the context of the health crisis. They reached 501 billion euros (up 17% in one year). French exports remain…