France has made tremendous progress in making itself relevant for the digital era.

“France is the next big thing,” said John Chambers, Cisco’s executive chairman, in an interview with Fortune in 2015. Indeed, France has made tremendous progress in making itself relevant for the digital era. Just three years ago, I was writing an open letter to the French president, insisting on the need for France to develop its relationship with California’s Silicon Valley if it wanted to be a major player in a post-industrial world.

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