French government will announce boost for innovation, SCI told
Paris, November 27 2002 - The French government is planning to announce new measures to encourage innovation in France in the next few weeks, Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin told members of the Strategic Council for Innovation (SCI) last week. The Council's goal is to boost French efforts in the field of research and high technologies and includes figures from France's science, industry and financial community.

Leaders of the Council, including its president and founder Dr Philippe Pouletty, also president of France Biotech, met the Prime Minister along with Industry Minister, Nicole Fontaine, and the Minister for Research and New Technologies, Claudie Haigneré, to present proposals on how best to encourage innovative enterprise in France.

In addition to measures to boost French performance, such as tax incentives for innovative companies and a reform of private foundations and of state research institutes, the council made proposals to the Prime Minister for a rapid consolidation of European stock markets into one strong stock market and for a unified European status for all European innovative corporations based on the lowest tax rates currently applied in selected member states. The Council and the Prime Minister are expected to meet again in the near future.

The Strategic Council for Innovation:
Key figures from France's science, industry and financial community have formed the Strategic Council for Innovation. The Council's goal is to boost French efforts in the field of research and high technologies. Founding members of the Council include prominent French entrepreneurs, French as well as European investors, ex-government ministers, directors of major research institutes, economists and lawyers.

The Council will:
(i) propose new legislation and initiatives to promote research and technology-driven companies to the French government and to the European Commission;
(ii) monitor French, European and international research and technology rankings according to standardized indexes;
(iii) coordinate and evaluate the results of such legislation and initiatives


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