European Funds Leave the US: A Chance for France and Bitcoin?

Trump Reshuffles European Savings

Since 1945, European savings have massively financed the American economy. The arrival of Donald Trump and the questioning of the American world order are shaking up this status quo. Dutch pension funds, managing nearly €2 trillion in assets, along with German and Swiss family offices, with around €1 trillion, are particularly looking for a credible European alternative.

The most visible signal comes from the Norwegian sovereign fund. Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM), which manages $2.3 trillion, has proposed to its Ministry of Finance to reduce the share of government bonds from 70% to 50% of its bond portfolio. The share of American Treasuries would drop from 34.1% to 21.9%, representing about $80 billion less.

In August, European equity funds attracted $13.5 billion in one week, compared to only $2.6 billion for American funds, according to LSEG Lipper. German companies have also reduced their new investments in the United States to €4.3 billion in the first half of 2026, down nearly two-thirds compared to 2025.

However, the movement remains limited. European capital continues to flow into Wall Street via global ETFs heavily exposed to American stocks, and American tech giants are now massively raising debt in euros, about $40 billion recently. Therefore, it cannot be said that there is a real flight of American assets at this time.

French Champions: Potential Beneficiaries

But this could change. If Europe manages to reclaim a portion of its savings, France has serious advantages in several strategic sectors: artificial intelligence, defense, energy, semiconductors, industry, and technological sovereignty.

The recent funding of Mistral AI illustrates this. The French startup has just secured €3 billion at a valuation of around €21 billion, the largest operation ever conducted by a European private tech company.

To sustainably attract this capital, one avenue could be, according to some economists, to develop an environment as welcoming as the City or Zurich, with predictable rules, a light and stable tax regime, and swift commercial justice. However, the French context, marked by record public debt and pressured borrowing rates, complicates the equation.

Bitcoin: A Credible Alternative for European Funds

In this logic of diversification away from the dollar, Bitcoin (BTC) appears as another natural destination. The first cryptocurrency is trading around $78,316, up 20.8% over 30 days.

However, available data does not yet show a real rotation in this direction. Recent flows into Bitcoin ETFs remain very volatile and largely dominated by American investors, reminding us that the institutional BTC market is still heavily dependent on Wall Street.

This observation could, however, evolve. If European investors increased their diversification away from American assets and the dollar, Bitcoin could gradually benefit from this search for alternatives, particularly due to its global nature and independence from any state or central bank.

Such an evolution would, however, remain speculative: in institutional portfolios, BTC continues to be largely regarded as a risky asset, more correlated with risk appetite than with a safe-haven logic.