first three quarters of 2015, euronext helped 38 companies carry out an initial public offering, raising a total of eur 82. 9 billion of equity and debt capital in both primary and secondary markets. its subsidiary enternext, which is dedicated to the financing and promotion of small and mid - caps, in turn enabled 26 companies to carry out ipos, raising eur 6 billion over the period. you are thus helping to bring about two important reconciliations : between the worlds of business and finance, and between france and its appetite for risk. what ’ s more you are achieving this with a european dimension. i can ’ t stress this enough : having a strong position in market infrastructure is vital for the french economy. i would like to look beyond euronext now, and focus on two more general avenues for promoting equity financing. first, the french public needs to adapt its savings behaviour to the current low interest rate environment. this is a chance to encourage a “ riskier ” and more long - term approach to investment, in the interest both of savers and our economy. today, only 31 % of households ’ financial investments are made up of risky assets, compared with 45 % in the euro area. this means taking action in two areas : first, the decrease in interest rates should be gradually passed on to risk - free investment returns – which is why i proposed lowering the rate on the pel, the french housing savings plan, and why we must continue to lower the returns on life insurance savings invested in euro funds ; second, we need to develop new products : less liquid, and with or without a long - term capital guarantee, and which allow savers to benefit from the higher returns offered by equities over the long term. a crucial point is to avoid any tax distortions that might mean these products are penalised more than liquid and risk - free investments. this level playing field in terms of taxation should also apply to the companies that are financed : in other words we need to avoid making debt financing more attractive than equity financing … and we know we have a long way to go on this. the second avenue for fostering equity financing is to boost cross - border capital flows within the euro area. one of the great paradoxes of the single currency bloc is that investment is too low while savings are generally in plentiful supply : the region has a high current account surplus, of more than eur 300 billion per year, or over 3 % of gdp

. despite the weakening of large emerging countries, the french and european economies should continue to benefit from an exceptional combination of three trends : ( i ) the significant drop in oil and commodity prices ( – 45 % and – 31 % respectively, in dollar terms, between 1 january 2015 and 14 january 2016 ) ; ( ii ) the downward trend in the exchange rate of the euro against the dollar ( – 10 % over the same period ) ; ( iii ) and very low interest rates ( – 80 basis points in bank lending rates since june 2014 ). the non - standard monetary policy that we have conducted in europe since june 2014 has done a lot for our economy. we now have reliable and concurrent estimates of its effectiveness : it has boosted growth prospects in the euro area by about 1 % for the period 2015 to 2017, and those of inflation by 0. 5 percentage point in 2016 and 0. 3 percentage point in 2017. all this is a lot... and in this respect our growth performance remains insufficient, lower than what should be achieved thanks to these exceptional economic stimuli, and lower than the european average. b ) we must now turn our too moderate economic recovery into strong, sustainable and job - creating growth. this shall notably be achieved by boosting business investment. the problem does not lie with the amount of french investment, since the investment rate of nonfinancial corporations, which stood at 22. 9 % in 2015, is slightly above its long - term average, i. e. 21. 4 % since 1980. the problem lies with its quality and productivity, which is insufficient to bis central bankers ’ speeches support growth : a large amount of construction, not enough machinery and equipment nor research and development. boosting productive investment is not something that can be decided from above : it depends on the decisions of thousands of entrepreneurs. but all are above all sensitive to three levers. first, growth prospects, since order books, i. e. expected demand or gdp, are the main drivers of investment. to raise medium - term growth in france, structural reforms are essential. today we know france ’ s handicaps : a highly indebted public sector, declining competitiveness, unwieldy procedures. we also know the solutions : they have worked in other european countries, sweden in the 1990s, germany in the 2000s, spain in the 2010s. the second lever is confidence. uncertainty is the enemy of investment. to reduce uncertainty, rules should be simplified, stabilised and made