France wants Elon Musk to build Tesla factory in the country even as it threatens Twitter with a ban

PARIS — France is trying to person Elon Musk to physique Tesla's adjacent Gigafactory successful the country, the nation's integer curate told CNBC connected Wednesday, successful the astir explicit comments yet that Paris wants the billionaire's investment.

The courtship comes conscionable arsenic the curate threatened the Musk-owned Twitter with a ban, if it does not comply with upcoming European Union regulation.

"It volition beryllium large to person a Tesla mill successful France, determination has been a batch of effort and vigor to marque definite this is imaginable and this tin happen," Jean-Noel Barrot told CNBC's Charlotte Reed astatine the Viva Tech league successful Paris.

France has been looking to boost its presumption arsenic a hub for the electrical car industry, opening its archetypal electrical car artillery mill this year.

"We person besides invested successful an ... full assemblage of electrical batteries truthful we volition effort to person him that France is the champion imaginable spot successful Europe to found the adjacent Tesla factory," Barrot said.

Musk is expected to talk successful Paris connected Friday astatine the Viva Tech acme — 1 of France's flagship exertion conferences, wherever the authorities volition person a ample presence. Musk has been connected the hunt for a caller Gigafactory location, successful summation to the company's large car manufacturing plants already contiguous successful the U.S., Germany and China.

Barrot praised Musk arsenic a "great inventor, astir apt 1 of the top of the opening of this century."

Barrot's effort to woo Tesla sharply contrasted his fiery words for the billionaire successful narration to Twitter.

The curate past period said the societal media app would beryllium banned successful the EU, if it did not travel the bloc's upcoming Digital Services Act that goes into effect successful August. The instrumentality volition unit tech giants, including Twitter, to constabulary amerciable contented and disinformation connected their platforms much aggressively, oregon hazard imaginable multibillion-dollar fines.

"There volition beryllium immense scrutiny by the EU committee … connected the actions Twitter is going to instrumentality to conscionable these caller obligations. If Twitter fails to comply with these obligations , Twitter volition look sanctions of up to 6% of planetary income ... In lawsuit those failures to comply are not ... corrected, they volition look an work to permission the EU"

"In the past mates of weeks, what we've seen is not reassuring arsenic to the quality of Twitter to comply with these caller rules," Barrot added without specifying what aspects of Twitter argumentation are not reassuring.