PARIS — When President Emmanuel Macron took office, he took pains to include two iPhones in his official portrait, a symbol of his penchant for technology. Millennials throng as he buzzes from one French start-up event to the next. He has wined and dined the chief executives of the world’s largest tech companies, who in turn have vowed to invest billions in France. Yet a year after Mr. Macron unveiled an aggressive agenda to turn France into “a start-up nation,” it is unclear if reality has kept pace with his rhetoric. The French president has carefully cultivated a tech-savvy image, promoted a steady drumbeat of high-profile events, and even pushed through a raft of economic and labor reforms to make his country more appealing to investors.

Source: New York Times May 23, 2018 05:00 UTC