Ireland

Political relations

Political relations with Ireland are excellent and marked by numerous bilateral visits. France and Ireland have a strong partnership, particularly with regard to European affairs, and French and Irish views are shared on many international and European issues. In 2019, the Irish authorities published “Ireland’s Strategy for France 2019–2025”. In many areas, French-Irish cooperation (sustainable growth, digital technology, higher education, inter-administrative dialogue, etc.) is now part of the France-Ireland Joint Plan of Action signed on 26 August 2021.

The Irish authorities are currently expanding their diplomatic and consular network in France. They have increased staff numbers at their Embassy in Paris and created new Honorary Consuls in Toulouse and Roscoff. The new Irish General Consulate in Lyon was inaugurated on 17 March 2023.

Economic relations

In 2022, trade between France and Ireland stood at €16 billion (up 25%), a level equivalent to France’s trade with India and Japan. Our exports were up 45%, while our imports had increased 14%. Our trade deficit with Ireland was down 24% to €2.9 billion. France mainly exports commodity chemicals, aviation and aerospace equipment and food products. Almost half of Irish exports to France is comprised of pharmaceutical products, many of which are manufactured using chemical products imported from France.

France is Ireland’s 9th largest market for foreign investment and Ireland is France’s 15th largest. In 2021, Irish investors held assets of nearly €4.6 billion in France (up €738 million) according to the Banque de France, across 300 businesses with 20,000 employees. France has invested €22.2 billion in Ireland (down €115 million), via 350 French companies employing 13,000 people.

A number of French companies are based in the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) in Dublin: BNP Paribas, Société Générale, Caceis (Crédit Agricole subsidiary), and Airbus Financial Services. As Dublin has become a major hub for insurance companies, major French players are also present: AXA, CACI (Crédit Agricole subsidiary), Coface, Euler Hermes and SCOR. The agrifood sector is represented by Danone and Pernod Ricard, which acquired Irish Distillers in 1988. In the transport sector, Alstom manufactures the trams for Dublin’s Luas light rail system.

Brexit has also created new opportunities for sea links between the two countries in order to bypass the United Kingdom. Since 1 January 2021, the number of direct ro-ro sea links between Ireland and France has quadrupled, particularly via the creation of 7 daily crossings between Dunkirk and Rosslare.

On 25 November 2022, the Celtic Interconnector contracts were signed for a 575 kilometre-long connection linking Brittany to Cork by 2026. In 2019, the EU, which declared this a project of common interest, allocated a subsidy of €530 million to the project, financing almost half of its costs. This will be the first cable linking the Irish grid to the continent.