Viva Tech-gasm

Even by the interventionist standards of the French government, the pace of announcements related to the tech ecosystem that was made over the course of Viva Technology was next-level bonkers.

Between travel and moderating at the mega-conference, I ignored my email for several days only to find it stuffed with press releases about new programs or new funding, or new policies designed to boost startups.

The flurry could be looked at in two ways. First, the government has many long-term plans for accelerating entrepreneurship, and so some of these have long been in the planning and part of normal policymaking. Second, the ecosystem is taking a bit hit due to the VC funding collapse and the government is wanting to send in reinforcements to make sure there's no backsliding.

Or maybe a little bit of both.

Whatever the case, there is a lot to digest. And because I believe that to understand France's innovation economy, one must understand the role of the government, I'm going to break down the announcements in no particular order of importance.