WHEN: Today, Thursday, May 23, 2024
WHERE: CNBC’s “Squawk Box”
Following are excerpts from the unofficial transcript of a CNBC exclusive interview with French President Emmanuel Macron on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” (M-F, 6AM-9AM ET) today, Thursday, May 23. Following is a link to video on CNBC.com: https://www.cnbc.com/video/2024/05/23/cnbc-exclusive-french-president-emmanuel-macron-on-ai-geopolitics-and-the-economy.html.
The full interview with President Emmanuel Macron will air on “CNBC INTERVIEWS: FRENCH PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON” tonight at 8PM ET.
All references must be sourced to CNBC.
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON ON AI, GEOPOLITICS, CHINA & MORE
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: It is true that, a few days ago, we hosted in Paris, Choose France, a big summit we created seven years ago to attract businesses and investment in tech, but all the different sectors as well, with $15 billion being invested for this session. And, and, here, we have VivaTech, a big fair created a few years ago, and which is now a huge success. And we have all this AI player coming from all the rest of the world. I do believe that the tech industry is one of the key factor of transformation of our economy. It provide growth. It provide innovation, growth. It creates a lot of opportunities for qualified and unqualified people. So, this is a big source of mobility in our societies.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Unqualified people too?
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: Yes, both. If you take for instance, I mean, I very often referred a few years ago on Uber at this stage, but it can provide a lot of job by disrupting existing, uh, businesses. And it provide, as well, qualified and unqualified jobs by transforming existing businesses and large gaps and existing large gaps. So, this is why I do believe in this sector. And II do believe from the I’ve clearly believed from the very beginning that France should be one of the leader in, in this field. We multiply it by, by 10 in 10 years, the scale of our ecosystem in, in tech. And when you take the difference between us and Europe, we are lagging behind. The growth per capital is half in Europe as it is in U.S. during the past three decades. The main driver for such a difference is precisely the lack of innovation and deficiency in innovation, especially in tech sector. So we have to do much better. And this is the case. France is leading the tech industry in Europe, and we want to multiply partnership with all the different places of this world. Referring to AI, we can revert on that, because AI is not just a sector. This is a huge revolution. And it’ll completely transform the existing sector, but it’ll transform education, democracy, work, a lot of things. And I think our challenge for AI is accelerate, innovate and invest and, on the other side, regulating at the appropriate scale, meaning the global one.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: OK, let me ask you about this. The CEO of Mistral, who you know, Arthur Mensch —
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: Yes.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: You have called him an example of French genius. He says the biggest risk of AI is a workplace revolution.
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: I think this is not just a risk. AI will be a revolution for work, for good and bad. Good, it’s quite sure now that it’ll increase productivity. You know, it was one of the big mystery of our economic lives that social networks and digitalization of our economy were not always perceivable in our data —
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Right.
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: As an increase of productivity. Clearly, it will be the case with the AI because it will completely transform a lot of —
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: But that may mean less jobs.
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: But I agree with you. It will push us to shift a lot of qualifications. This is why we have to understand. We have to progressively be aware of that and educate our people. And we have to work very hard on the requalification of a lot of people. We have to, we have to train and requalify a lot of people. But the big question, you know, and I speak from experience in a country where robots were less used than in a lot of other places. In the 1990s, robotization was one of the big revolution of our economies. And we had exactly the same debates. A lot of people said, robots are awful. They will replace jobs. But Western economies, I mean, economies —
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Right.
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: With a certain level of, of wages with so, uh, high cost of of labor, when they adopted robots preserved —
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Right.
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: Their industrial footprint. We didn’t want to have robots in France. We destroyed much more industrial capacity. So, the question is how AI will be at the service of humanity, and not just seen as a substitute of humanity, which is awful project. So we have risks. We have to assess them. We have to lead innovation to be in a situation to regulate in appropriate terms and to say, OK, I want this AI when it is at the service of humanity, when it increases productivity, when it’ll be a substitute to, I mean, bad jobs. But, in parallel, I have to maximize the number of good jobs in my economy. This is transition.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Let me ask you this. It’s a practical and philosophical question about attracting start-ups and entrepreneurs to France, which is to say that I think you want to foster entrepreneurship here in France. Historically, when you think about some of the great entrepreneurs, the folks who started Google or Meta, they went on to become billionaires. And I want to understand the paradox in how you think about the idea of creating people who may become, you know, people of great wealth in a country that I think has a very complicated view of wealth.
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: I think wealth is a complicated story everywhere in the world. It’s true that France has a passion for equality, only much more than others. And we have existing taxation. But I got rid of the wealth tax when I was elected president. I put in place a flat tax. This is how we attracted a lot of capitals. And I do believe that, indeed, we have to promote success through innovation. And I think it’s very important in our societies to make a clear distinction. You can have successful people when they perform as artists, in sport, but as well in business and innovation. And it’s good. It is good for everybody because they create value for the whole people.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Right.
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: And you have to accept that. Otherwise, in especially in an economy of talents, as an innovative economy is, you kill your own capacities if you reject this model. On the other side, the question is how to redistribute at the point of time and to avoid that, in 10, 20, 30 years, it’ll be just the children of those who had talents —
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Right.
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: Will get the economy, which is a different question. So it’s, it’s very true that, in a lot of our societies the level of, um, of wealth is more and more a question. It is true it was a tradition in France. We changed that. I passed very clear reform to transform this approach. But, in parallel, I think this is a good global debate. And I think having a, a wealth tax is a global debate. And I push with U.S., with Brazil, and some others a global wealth tax, which is much more relevant than a French or European one. Also, one, otherwise, the tenets, I mean, just —
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: I don’t know if you saw that Janet Yellen, the treasury secretary, just came out and said that she’s against a wealth tax. This is the treasury secretary of the United States. Did you see that?
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: This is a pity. We will have the discussion in G20 with with Lula. And I think this is a good global tax as a minimum tax we push in our agenda as a digital tax because you have to avoid big discrepancies. And I think, look, even in the U.S. society, more and more people now are a little bit shocked or upset by the level of wealth accumulated in some hands.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Right.
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: It’s fair that, when you are very innovative and successful, you get money and you’re paid for that, and when you create big innovation, even more. But I think this is the right question at the scale of the planet to say, we need this, more fairness. I think it’s counterproductive if you just do it, especially for people in talent at the national scale.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: You mentioned artists before and creativity. And Cannes, the film festival, is happening right now. I don’t know if you saw this news today, and it relates to AI, so I wanted to ask you. OpenAI, uh, just said it would no longer use a voice that sounded like Scarlett Johansson, the movie star because the voice was too close to her voice. And she was upset about that even though it was done by another actress. I’m curious, given your thoughts about creativity, whether you think AI should be able and this is an intellectual property issue and copyright issue, should be able to use a voice that sounds like somebody else’s voice —
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: I think —
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Even if it’s not the same voice. Somebody may do this to you one day.
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: I’m using AI, for instance, to translate a lot of speeches in different languages. And this is one of the innovation we make with Mistral AI, the company you mentioned, with audio. And, and I think, in all the big questions we have on the table and, by the way, it will be the question we will discuss during the AI Action Summit we will have in Paris in February 2015. Intellectual property is one of them. I strongly believe that we have to protect our artists, our writers, our I mean, all the different artists from any threat and we have to protect the intellectual property. It’s very important. And AI should not be seen as a threat if we create the proper regulation. So I do believe that we need in order to do so as well the global regulation. This is why, in this conversation, we need both the U.S. and China and the big economies and innovators of this planet, precisely to be sure that we protect this, this IP.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Let me ask you this about big tech, though, and regulation. Uh, Mistral is now a huge company here in France.
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: Yes.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: It has a partnership with Microsoft. A number of the big AI companies are partnering with big tech all over again. If Microsoft called up Mistral and said, we want to buy you, in this day and age, are they such a national champion, would you say, I can’t do it, you can do it? What do you think of big tech getting bigger by —
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: Look, I think it’s not automatically a good news. And I would prefer them to become independent and to grow on their own. Because I think M&A is part of the business life, for sure. But what we, what we look especially with, with a lot of big tech and giants during the past few years is, they had sort of counter innovation M&A, and then and sort of many M&A proposed in order just to digest those who were more a little bit more innovative, and to be sure that they take their innovation. But these guys don’t go further in order to jeopardize them. I think it’s good and I think it’s even good for the U.S. ecosystem to have a very vivid, vibrant, and and ambitious European ecosystem. And it’s insane to have a world where the big giant just come for China and U.S.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Do you think —
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: So we need much more European —
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Right.
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: Big players. And I think Mistral AI can be one of them, H with a lot of investment. And they decided to locate here. And the more we will have European players, the more the European governments —
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Right.
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: Will be in the same discussion as the U.S. and the Chinese governments.
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON ON EUROPE’S ECONOMY & GAZA
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: I do think about that. I’m not so worried about this issue. I think the guidance is clear. I’m not supposed to comment on ECB decision, because this is a, an independent body. But I think the guidance is clear. And this is a normalization on both sides of the ocean. And by the way, look at the situation. I think our economies did quite well to fix inflation without killing too much growth. And I have to recognize that we are fixing inflation issue. And, in France, we still created private jobs during this period of time, which is quite unique. So, I’m, I think we are entering in a normalization process post-COVID, war, inflation due to energy and so on. So it’s good. I think we need probably a broader monetary policy. I’m not worried by the short term of the ECB. I’m a strong advocate —
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: A broader policy that looks like what?
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: Look, I’m a strong advocate, I’m a strong advocate of an enlargement of the mandate of the ECB, following the model of the Fed. You just your, your Central Bank doesn’t just take into consideration inflation, but growth and jobs creation is taken into consideration. I do believe that the ECB has to complete inflation as a target by jobs creation, growth and decarbonization of our economy. Because decarbonization will create de facto inflation, for sure, because you will increase the cost of a lot of goods and products. And the re-regionalization, I would say, as a fragmentation of world trade de facto will create some embedded inflation. So I think we have to complete the mandate. This is a very political question, but this is much more efficient for European growth. And the issue of Europe, let’s be clear, is to succeed in this agenda of decarbonization. France is on, is back on track since 2019. And we will, we are issuing today the right figure. It’s not just from 4.8, but more than 5 percent reduction last year, as we created jobs and growth. So it’s feasible, and we are back on track. But we need growth. This is a main issue for Europeans.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: And my final economic question, and it’s a global one, who should ultimately pay for the rebuilding of Gaza when that moment arrives?
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: I think this discussion will be part of a sort of peace treaty or a treaty for the day after, I would say. For me, the most important thing first is the humanitarian situation right now. It’s, we speak about lives and an awful situation. So, this is why we, we do ask for cease-fire. So, for number one, cease-fire, humanitarian situation, number two, before rebuilding Gaza, it’s political solution. No matter who will rebuild and how we’ll pay for Gaza, if you don’t have a political solution, meaning a two-states approach and a Palestinian state in charge of this territory, and, for me, in the condition of this Palestinian state, there is a recognition of Israel and the recognition of the security of Israel as one of the key and fundamental elements of the states. And this is, for me, the main way to have sustainable peace in the region, to say the security of Israel is part of our objective in the region and our top priorities. Palestinian state is a good thing because this is a relevant and a fair request from Palestinian people, but because it’ll provide peace in the whole if there is a recognition of Israel and its security as this constitution. And, third, the question will be, who will pay. And everybody in the region and the rest of the world will come around the table. You have a lot of deep pockets in this region. A lot of them could be ready to pay, if this is about the security, the stability of the region, and as a part of a broader picture. This is how I see the situation.
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON ON THE PARIS AGREEMENT
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: Look, I don’t speculate on any elections, and especially with the U.S. elections.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Right.
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: So I don’t want to make a sort of impossible scenario in case of. But, um, what’s important is, once the U.S. decided to withdraw for a while, at least we consolidated the rest of the club. And this is the period of time we use to have Turkey, Russia, and some others to stick to the agreement —
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Sure.
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: And sign and ratify. I think it would be a big mistake for U.S. It’ll be a big mistake for the planet, but big mistake for U.S., because the U.S. if the U.S. decides to leave Paris Agreement, it’ll be a perfect occasion —
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: Offered to big carbonized economy not to do their fair share of —
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: But you have worked, you’ve worked with him before. So what did you learn about working with him? Do you think that there would be a way to persuade him to remain in it?
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: Sometimes, I, I succeed. Sometimes, I failed. So I’m very humble. I’ve known through to that. I do my best. And I will do my best to convince him if he were president. And I do my best to convince when I think this is a good idea as well President Biden. We work very closely and very well with this administration. I but I think the U.S. has a very as the first economy of this world, has a very important role to play to decarbonize its economy. And by the way I was not happy with Inflation Reduction Act, because it was not good for the Europeans. But I have to recognize it’s good to decarbonize the U.S. economy, because it attracts a lot of cleantech. So I think it was, it was a smart law for your economy, your jobs, and for and for climate change at a global scale. So, um, my objective now with the U.S. administration needs to work very hard first to be sure that we resynchronize our agenda. And I think the U.S. now has to regulate a little bit more the key investors, the business sector to be sure they are more compliant with Paris Agreement. And the Europeans have to invest more, because we regulated much more than the others, but we are not investing at the right scale.
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON ON BIG TECH, REGULATION, GEOPOLITICS & THE OLYMPIC GAMES
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: I think it’s wrong, but it’s normal when you are in when you’re government and elected and democratic government to provide guarantees to your people. For instance, if I want to provide guarantee on your privacy, the storage of your data, the use of your cloud. This is a sovereign and a very important democratic issue. And, as European governments, if your citizens use at 90 percent U.S. platform, what do you do? If you say, OK, I’m sorry, I cannot regulate that —
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Right.
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: I cannot guarantee your privacy because you use a platform which is not under my regulation. I mean, this is just completely changing our system and de facto to decide that we don’t live in democracy anymore, but in a system where the key elements are decided by a privately owned company in another geography.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Let me ask you —
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: So I think the point is —
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Yes.
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: I don’t regulate you when you operate in U.S. Fine. But just be sure that when you operate in the European continent, you have to respect European rules. And guess what? This is exactly the same when a European company operates in the U.S. Can you imagine one second that the U.S. company will arrive a European company will arrive, let’s imagine a European bank, and it will decide not to respect the U.S. regulation?
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Right.
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: Never, ever. This is the same. So we want to be respected. And we just want to say, we have our, our collective preferences. We do believe in innovation. We do believe in digital world, but we think that privacy, we think that the respect of your data, these kind of elements —
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Right.
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: And this is why fake news as well with AI, everything which can jeopardize at a point of time, our system of rule of law and our model of democracy, it’s normal we want to protect them. And we put in place regulation for players, and, by the way, European U.S., Chinese, all the players.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: I’m curious whether you think that TikTok is a national security threat to you here in France. That’s what it’s being described as in the United States, where it’s likely to get shut down.
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: No, I think you can have big issues with the use of platforms or algorithm and so on. And I think this is a good debate. And this is a debate we raised in Europe with the directive and precisely on the digital activities.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: But you don’t think it’s a national security threat?
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: DSA. I don’t exclude that point of time. Some issues content could be part of, but we didn’t use this approach. And we are neutral in terms of technology, nationality, and players. What we want to regulate is through the users. And, for instance, any platform could be an issue if it provides threat to our children, bullying, hatred speech, if it doesn’t guarantee the withdrawal in, in a reasonable time this, this dangerous or unacceptable contents. And what we put in place is a regulation where we can penalize or shut down a platform if this platform doesn’t respect these rules —
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Right.
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: But not in function of its nationality.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: You just did that in the case in New Caledonia. And I think —
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: To be precise, New Caledonia, this is a local government —
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: That did it.
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: Competence. And they did it because it was used or, let’s say, misused by for the riots by some very violent people. So, we do respect, we didn’t force or forbid the local government. It’s their decision and not the decision of the, of the French government. But I think it was seen as useful, given the misuse of the platform.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: And you think it was the right decision?
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: I think it was, given the very hot period of time, but it’s not supposed to last.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Right.
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: And and I think in the hours or days to come, they will go back to normal situation.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Right. You just meant with President Xi of China. And I’m curious what you think of this. Gina Raimondo, the commerce secretary in the United States, refers to China as quote “the biggest threat we’ve ever had.” Do you think that’s the right way to talk about China?
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: Look, I think China is a competitor when we speak about trade, innovation and economy. I think the pity is that we should work much more collectively in order to push them to be compliant with international rules, instead of deciding ourself not to respect these international rules ourselves. I speak about trade rules and so on. So this is a competitor, a fierce competitor. And this is why, for instance, I do back the decision of the commission to launch inquiries and so on when they have all over-subsidies overcapacities when you don’t have the same level playing field. But they compete. They are quite good in terms of creating innovations and producing. We were too naive until now. And, today, Europe is less protective to its economies than the U.S. So we have to adapt our strategy and be clear. But this is a competitor.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Right.
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: Second, it’s a rival in terms of values. When we speak about human rights, we don’t have the same values. And we have big disagreements. But, third, this is a partner as well, and we need them. And it’s impossible to fix climate change, it’s almost impossible to fix, as well as a big job political crisis, without engaging with China. And I think this is why we have to clarify our agenda in terms of trade and be clear and respectful, but defend our interests when we speak about these disagreements and trade and economy. But we have to do our best to engage them on the big issues of this world. Look, I mean, if the U.S. didn’t engage in 2015 with China, just forget Paris Agreement. We did this big progress on climate change with Paris Agreement because of a U.S.-Chinese convergence on climate change. And this is true for biodiversity, for climate, peace and so on. So, in this regard, China is an important partner for the U.S., for the Europeans, and the rest of the globe.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: I want to talk to you about climate change in just a second, but we are now two months, uh, before the Olympics. And one of the things that you got China to pledge was their support for a truce in Ukraine —
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: Exactly.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: During the Olympics. Putin has said that he won’t have a truce. What would have to change to get a truce?
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: Look, a truce is not for me the endgame. Sustainable peace is the endgame. But I think it’s very important. First, this is a tradition, and it’s very important to use this window during one-month time.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: A tradition to have a truce during war.
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: During the Olympic Games.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Right.
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: And I think this is a very good, um, opportunity, first diplomatically, precisely to engage with China and others and tell, OK, you are on the peace side. Get with us and help us to do so, and, second, to maximize the level of pressure on those who decided to to launch a war. And this is why I think this is a big clarification moment. Because, every week until now, President Putin was claiming to be available for peace.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Right.
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: So, they will enter in real time, money time, I would say, for peace, even say, OK, are you ready to start 26th of July, the 12th of August? They say, no, I’m not ready. So, for everybody in the world, it’s clear.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Right.
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: He is the one who decided to launch this war, and he is not ready to make peace.
