| “Come back, we need you,” Emmanuel Macron told London’s sizeable community of French entrepreneurs in 2017, with the self-harm of Brexit offering Paris a golden opportunity to stem a decades-long flight of bright continental minds to the British capital. Now it’s American self-harm that’s making France and Europe look once again like a relative island of stability as Donald Trump takes aim at the US's elite universities and research institutions with funding cuts and culture-war rhetoric. Macron, who is keen to pitch continental leadership at a time of political gridlock in France, this week launched a platform designed to attract American researchers to France and Europe. He pledged to allocate €100 million within an existing program aimed at creating high-tech champions while European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen put forward a €500 million incentives package. "If you love freedom, come and do research here," Macron said.  Macron and Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission. Photographer: Nathan Laine/Bloomberg Macron no doubt also realizes the value of scientific talent if the trade dispute with the US were to really heat up, especially given Europe's lag when it comes to technology and innovation. The Draghi Report warned last year that the EU was not meeting research spending targets of 3% of GDP annually and that this was a "fundamental reason" why the bloc trailed behind the US and China. The problem is whether the promised funds will be enough to move the needle. The US National Institutes of Health alone has a budget of roughly $48 billion, for instance. Jean-Olivier Hairault, the director of the Paris School of Economics, is skeptical for the time being. “There is definitely something that has changed in the US, and academics know no institution is totally immune,” he told the Paris Edition. “That said, it is not at all a given that France will be the destination of choice.” Hairault pointed to salaries in the US that were effectively double those in France. The missing link in the chain, according to Hairault, is the private sector. Companies could be encouraged to see the benefits of long-term research in a trade war. It’s already happening to some extent: In Denmark, Novo Nordisk's non-profit foundation has helped fund a new supercomputer for artificial intelligence projects. And in France, we’ve seen Xavier Niel and other billionaires invest in AI research. Yet this touches on the deeper challenges: The unabating pressure on France to rein in public spending and a gridlocked parliament that's in no mood for real reform means there isn’t a deep pool of money the country could tap into to back up Macron’s appeal. Even in a historic week that's seen Germany under new leadership with big ambitions for European collaboration, the optimism of 2017 seems far away. New German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Macron pledged to reset ties between their nations and join forces to help strengthen the European Union’s defensive capabilities and competitiveness. Europe should impose reciprocal measures on Boeing if negotiations fail to lift recent US tariffs hurting the aerospace industry, according to Airbus Chief Executive Officer Guillaume Faury. Former centrist Prime Minister Edouard Philippe would be neck and neck with far-right National Rally leader Jordan Bardella in the race to become France’s next president in 2027, a poll of voting intentions showed.  Edouard Philippe. Photographer: Nathan Laine/Bloomberg Eutelsat, the French satellite operator that Europe is trying to position as a homegrown alternative to Elon Musk’s Starlink, is replacing its chief executive officer. France is calling on the EU to dial back a landmark proposal improving the protection for retail investors, saying the current draft would impose onerous burdens on asset managers and drive away clients. Spain is working with France and Portugal to strengthen its power grid and has made interconnections a high priority, the country’s top energy official told senators a week after a nationwide blackout. | 
