French Trade Dependencies | Pierre Rousseaux

How exposed are French importing firms to the EU's strategic dependencies?

Linking firm-level French customs records to the EU's 2015–2019 vulnerability lists gives a direct headcount of exposure, at every stage of the funnel:

French firms importing EU strategic-dependency products

Out of all French firms recorded as importing anything, how many import a product on each successive vulnerability list.

Of roughly 241,000 French importing firms, about 70,700 (10.3% of import value) import at least one product on the EC's 3-criteria list, 66,800 (9.0%) import one that also fails the domestic-absorption test, and 17,873 firms (0.5%) import a full 5-criteria strategic dependency. The 17,873 firms represent about 7% of the 241,221 French firms in the customs sample. The 0.5% figure refers instead to the value of French extra-EU imports accounted for by the relevant vulnerable products. Keeping firm incidence and import-value exposure separate is important: the two statistics answer different questions.

How much of that exposure runs through non-NATO countries?

Geopolitical risk is concentrated on the non-NATO side of French trade. Repeating the same firm-count exercise restricted to imports sourced from non-NATO countries:

French firms importing from non-NATO countries

Same population of ~241,000 French importers, restricted to non-NATO sourcing at each stage.

The paper reports that 75% of French extra-EU importers traded with at least one non-NATO country over 2015–2019. Moreover, 24% of French importers imported a product classified as vulnerable under the EC methodology from these countries, compared with 6% under the extended five-criteria classification. These are firm-incidence statistics and should be kept distinct from import-value shares.

These counts describe direct exposure. Mejean and Rousseaux (2024) also use French firm-to-firm intra-EU export data to illustrate indirect exposure. Of 1,453,721 non-French European firms importing from French firms, 1,011,794 (71%) buy from a French firm directly exposed to a product on the EC list, and 652,027 (50%) buy from a French firm exposed to a product on the full five-criteria list. The exercise illustrates how a disruption can propagate beyond the firms that directly import the vulnerable product.

Beyond direct exposure: who else gets caught in the ripple?

A French firm importing a vulnerable product is one thing. But that firm also sells to other European firms — and a disruption at the border doesn't stop there. Mejean and Rousseaux (2024) match French customs data on direct extra-EU imports with French firm-to-firm intra-EU export data, to trace how far exposure travels once it enters the EU Single Market through France.

Non-French EU firms indirectly exposed, through their purchases from French firms

Out of all non-French EU firms that buy from a French importer (2015–2019), how many buy from a French firm that is itself directly exposed to each successive vulnerability list.

Of 1,453,721 non-French EU firms buying from French firms, 1,011,794 (71%) buy from a French firm that itself imports a product on the EC's 3-criteria list, 990,490 (69%) from one exposed under the absorption criterion, and 652,027 (50%) from one exposed to a full 5-criteria strategic dependency. Half of all non-French firms trading with a French importer are therefore, at least one step removed, connected to a strategic dependency they never directly import themselves — exactly the kind of exposure a firm has little visibility into on its own.

France's own product-level diagnostic

Beyond firm exposure to the EU list, the same five-criteria methodology can be applied directly to France's own extra-EU imports (rather than the EU27-consolidated flows used on the EU page). This gives a French-specific vulnerability list, its evolution since 2015, its sectoral and geographic composition, and the concentration (HHI) of each product.

French product-level funnel

Extra-EU imports of France only. Same three-stage funnel as the EU diagnostic (EC → + Absorption → Full 5-criteria). Percentages are the share of total French import value, not of the already-filtered list.

Period:

Number of vulnerable products, by year (France)

French extra-EU imports, 2015–2024, recomputed year by year with no gaps. Absorption and full 5-criteria lag by a year or two where Prodcom/EAP production data has not caught up yet.

Pooled: 2015–2019 vs 2021–2024

Hover a bar for the share of the EC-list's import value it represents, when available.

Everything below reacts to the same period toggle. Pick a period first, the charts redraw immediately below it.

Period:

These breakdowns use a slightly broader in-house product list than the headline funnel above: they don't yet implement the intermediate "matched with production data" step, so their totals can run a little higher than the article's official counts.

Sectoral distribution

French extra-EU import vulnerabilities by broad product category (HS sections).

Top countries of origin

Most frequent top supplier among France's vulnerable products, selected period.

Position in the value chain × import concentration

Every French vulnerable product for the selected period, plotted by upstreamness (x-axis) and HHI (y-axis). Blue = EC only, red = + Absorption (not MR), green = full 5-criteria (MR). Hover a point for the product, its HS6 code, its top supplier, and an estimated upper bound on that supplier's market share.

Ex-post substitutability ("stickiness")

Distribution of the stickiness score within each list.

Upstreamness

Same underlying variable as the scatter above, shown as a distribution within each list.

Domestic absorption

Distribution of the domestic-absorption ratio (extra-EU imports over estimated domestic absorption) among products for which it is computed. Values above roughly 0.5 typically satisfy the absorption criterion; very high values mean estimated domestic production is close to zero.

Explore the underlying French product list

Search, sort and filter, split by tier and by period. Showing the top 20 matches only; for the full list, email pierre.rousseaux@ensae.fr.

All tiers EC only + Absorption Full 5-criteria

HS6	Product description	Tier	HHI ▾	Upstreamness	Top supplier

France 2030: ongoing evaluation work

An evaluation is under way with Lionel Fontagné, Farid Toubal and Gianluca Santoni on the France 2030 investment plan and its contribution to reducing French trade dependencies. The project looks at France's dependencies and their technological underpinnings, building — for the first time — a tracker of France's technological dependencies, designed to be applicable to any other country. The evaluation is ongoing.