According to Bercy, nearly 600 cyberattacks or foreign takeovers were detected in 2022, more than the previous year.
Cyberattacks, takeovers: nearly 600 “foreign threats” targeting French companies were detected by the government in 2022, according to the annual report of the Directorate General for Enterprise (DGE), published on Wednesday January 18.
“The interministerial economic security platform detected and processed 588 alerts on foreign threats during the first 10 months of 2022, more than in the whole of 2021”, writes the DGE, attached to the Ministry of the Economy.
While the ministry is also responsible for digital and industrial sovereignty since the re-election of Emmanuel Macron, 40% of the threats detected last year (i.e. around 235 threats) were linked to attempts to “predate technologies and sensitive data “, the same proportion (40%) relating to “capital transactions.
The rest of the alerts handled by the government were divided between cyberattacks on “nerve infrastructures” (10%, around 60 threats) and “legal risks linked to the exposure of French companies to foreign legislation with extraterritorial reach” , according to the report.
Reinforced controls
These figures are published almost two weeks after the government announced its desire to perpetuate the reinforced control of foreign investments put in place during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The threshold for triggering the control of foreign investments in France will be definitively set at 10% of equity participation, instead of 25%”, declared the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire at the time.
With this mechanism, any non-European investor who crosses the threshold of 10% of the voting rights of a strategic listed company must notify Bercy. The ministry can then decide on a more in-depth examination, or even block the operation if it considers it contrary to French interests.
Despite this enhanced monitoring, 124 takeovers or foreign takeovers of French companies were authorized after control in 2022. Slightly more than half (68) “were authorized with conditions imposed on the investor to protect the interests sovereigns” of France, is detailed in the report.
