SUMMARY
Report written by Thierry CHOPIN, François CHIMITS and Énora MORIN.
Published in December 2025 by the Institut Montaigne, this report is an in-depth monograph on the Dunkirk industrial basin. Based on over 50 interviews with private and public players at all levels (local, regional, national, European), it also draws on a large corpus of secondary sources: sectoral studies, official reports, statistical data. The approach is resolutely empirical and prescriptive: to draw generalizable lessons for French and European industrial policies from a concrete case study.
The choice of Dunkirk is not insignificant. In just a few dozen square kilometers, this region concentrates virtually all the tensions running through the contemporary European political economy: structural deindustrialization, urgent ecological reconversion, exacerbated international competition, energy dependency, skills shortages, regulatory complexity. With almost 4 billion euros of French and European public money committed since 2022 to support industrial projects there, Dunkirk has become the symbol - and perhaps the life-size test - of France's and Europe's desire to reindustrialize. The title, deliberately conditional, underlines the fact that the report is a lucid analysis of the successes achieved, the obstacles still present and the conditions essential to the success of a national and European ambition that is still fragile.
Keywords: economic attractiveness, international competition, decarbonization, deindustrialization, energy, taxation, land, training, governance, industry, infrastructure, foreign direct investment, public policy, reindustrialization, synergies, Dunkirk, France, Europe.
Illustration: © Institut Montaigne
Map of industrial projects in Dunkirk
