Taiwan may lack Europe's cultural cachet, but France's outgoing top envoy in Taipei says the island has become something Paris cannot do without: the manufacturing muscle behind Europe's AI and semiconductor ambitions.
Franck Paris, director of the French Office in Taipei — a post that functions as France's de facto ambassador — held his farewell press conference on July 7, closing out a three-year posting that began in August 2023. He returns to France later this month.
A Diplomat Who Spent Three Years Rebranding France
Paris, 49, built his career largely on African affairs before arriving in Taiwan: a Sciences Po graduate who joined the French foreign ministry in 2001, advised the French defense minister on European and African policy from 2013 to 2017, and served as President Emmanuel Macron's senior Africa adviser from 2017 to 2023.
He said the challenge awaiting him in Taipei was different from anything in that career — convincing Taiwanese audiences that France was more than fashion, food, and cultural heritage. His entry point was culture itself. Working with the Kaohsiung city government, he launched the annual French Living Festival, now in its third year, and partnered with Taipei's city government on the Nuit Blanche arts event. Business exchanges tagged along: nearly every French company based in Taipei has now made the trip south to meet Kaohsiung officials and local firms.
That cultural groundwork is set to leave a permanent institutional footprint. A French international school — the Laboratoire International Francophone de Kaohsiung, or LIFK — will open at Mingde Elementary School in Kaohsiung's Zuoying District this September, taking students from grade one through three. More than 40 Taiwanese families have already enrolled their children.
Taiwanese Firms Are Showing Up at France's Biggest Tech Stages
Paris pointed to a string of exchanges he said gradually pulled Taiwan into France's innovation circuit — including a 2024 lecture by Nobel physics laureate Alain Aspect and delegations of French startups in AI, semiconductors, cybersecurity, and biotech touring Taiwan. In February 2025, his office helped Taiwanese firms take part in the Paris AI Action Summit; by June, they had a visible presence at VivaTech, France's flagship tech expo.
He credited Foxconn chairman Young Liu with driving that shift. After visiting VivaTech last year and coming away impressed, Liu concluded Foxconn needed its own booth. This year, the company occupied a large stand staffed by 60 people, showing off electric vehicle, semiconductor, and AI data center technology. "In a very short time, Taiwan's visibility at this exhibition has grown enormously," Paris said.
Foxconn's French Bets Could Pull the Rest of Taiwan's Supply Chain Along
Paris singled out two Foxconn investment announcements this year as the clearest sign of how far the relationship has moved. At the Choose France summit in June, Foxconn unveiled a partnership with French IT group Bull to build out AI infrastructure manufacturing capacity in Europe, alongside a joint venture — named Tessalia, with partners Radiall and Thales — targeting advanced semiconductor packaging, marked by a groundbreaking in Le Barp in southern France.
He said he's counting on the Foxconn name to do more than its own investments imply. "Everyone in Taiwan knows Foxconn. I hope its investments in France will generate a cascading effect across Taiwan's supply chain, because wherever TSMC or Foxconn invests, the entire supply chain takes notice," Paris said.
He contrasted that with ProLogium, the Taiwanese EV battery maker that had, until Foxconn's arrival, been France's most significant strategic-sector investment from Taiwan. Paris described the company as technically excellent but too low-profile in Taiwan to draw other firms into following its lead — a gap he believes Foxconn's higher visibility can close.
Why Paris Sees Complementary Interests, Not Competition
Looking past his own departure, Paris framed the Taiwan-France relationship as built on a structural trade-off rather than rivalry. "France and Europe can deliver major innovations, breakthroughs in AI, and advances in quantum technology," he said. "But when it comes to scaling those things up, Taiwan is indispensable."
That dependency, he argued, is exactly what makes Taiwan the natural partner for Europe's push toward its own semiconductor supply chain and digital sovereignty. "We are not trying to catch up with Taiwan," he said. "We are working with Taiwan to scale up France's best companies. That is why I am very optimistic about the possibilities for deeper cooperation ahead."
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