Investment in Alabama antithetical to French values

Every bit as cynical and hypocritical as German investment in Alabama—because of Alabama’s penchant for putting people to death, including by savagely torturing them with nitrogen gas—is France’s investment in Alabama; just as I wrote about recently in the case of Germany, France is also a leader in the fight for the global abolition of the death penalty; and so just as antithetical as it is to German values for German companies to invest so heavily in Alabama, it is equally antithetical to French values for French companies to pour so much money into Alabama, too.

On its website, the Consulate General of France in Atlanta observes: “France will host the 9th World Congress Against the Death Penalty from 30 June to 2 July 2026 in Paris. The Congress Against the Death Penalty, held every three years by the NGO Ensemble Contre la Peine de Mort (ECPM), is a major event in the global abolitionist movement. It brings together governments, parliament members, civil society members and citizens committed to a common goal.”

Announcing this meeting of death penalty abolitionists, France’s Consulate General asserts that “Since 1981, the year in which France abolished the death penalty, France has resolutely worked to achieve universal abolition of the death penalty, which goes against human dignity. The death penalty is not simply a criminal justice policy instrument, but a violation of human rights. In international bodies, France is carrying out determined action to further its abolition.”

Perhaps. But just as anti-death penalty Germans should be discussing and implementing ways to regulate, reduce, maybe even completely cut off the massive investment by giant and powerful German companies in Alabama—until Alabama stops barbarically torturing human beings to death—French diplomats, politicians, judges, lawyers, human rights advocates, and other French citizens of conscience should be doing the exact same thing; The French should be discussing and implementing ways to regulate, reduce, and again, as drastic as it sounds—and is—even completely end the massive investment by wealthy and powerful French companies in Alabama until Alabama stops torturing humans to death. This should be a major topic of discussion when France convenes the 9th World Congress Against the Death Penalty next summer in Paris.

While less than Germany, the amount of money that French businesses have invested in Alabama is astounding and attendees of 9th World Congress Against the Death Penalty should discuss how France—and other countries, too—can use capitalism and the threat of withholding massive foreign investment as a cudgel to force death penalty-loving states like Alabama to stop gassing its condemned citizens to death and otherwise torturing them with lethal injection. (While Alabama also has the ghastly electric chair, it hasn’t been used in over two decades.)

The amount of money French companies invest in Alabama is enormous. See, e.g., Shelby G. Spires, “French see Alabama as fertile business investment ground,” al.com, Feb. 7, 2010; Jerry Underwood, “Foreign investment accelerates with new growth projects in Alabama,” Alabama News Center, Feb. 19, 2023 (“France-based Airbus is adding a third assembly line to increase A320 Family aircraft production at its Alabama manufacturing center, creating 1,000 jobs in Mobile. Investment in the project is more than $800 million.”); Jerry Underwood, “International investment speeds job growth in Alabama, analysis shows,” madeinalabama.com, Aug. 2, 2023 (“French auto supplier EFI Automotive announced plans this year to invest $6 million to expand production of sensors used in Ford pickups[.]”); “France-Based National Cement Co. of Alabama Plans Kiln Expansion at Ragland Plant,” Area Development News Desk, Dec. 23, 2019 (“The National Cement Co. of Alabama, whose parent company is France-based VicatSA, plans to invest more than $250 million to construct a new kiln at its production plant, 50 miles east of Birmingham, in Ragland, Alabama.”); “Growing French investment in the U.S. Southeast,” Consulate General of France in Atlanta (“2015 has already been an eventful year with announcements of several new investments in the U.S. Southeast by French companies Hutchinson Corporation [a $2 million aerospace manufacturing center in Mobile, Alabama]; Actemium, Arkema [a $60 million capital investment at their Axis, Alabama site] and ORECA.”).

“My administration is committed to helping rural communities across Alabama thrive by helping great companies such as National Cement invest and grow in our state,” Governor Kay Ivey said in 2019. “I welcome the company’s decision to make a significant new investment in its St. Clair County operations because it will serve to deepen its roots in Ragland for many years to come.”

With so much foreign money at stake it’s not surprising that also, that same year, in 2019, Governor Ivey issued a press release titled “Gov. Ivey Announces Alabama to Open European Office to Advance Economic Development.” Ivey’s press release asserted: “Alabama’s economic ties with Europe—in particular, Germany—trace back for decades. Germany has become Alabama’s No. 1 source of foreign direct investment, totaling $8.5 billion since 1999, according to Alabama Department of Commerce estimates. While major European corporations such as Mercedes-Benz, Airbus, GKN Aerospace, Evonik, BASF and Siemens all have operations in Alabama, the state has also attracted a significant number of smaller European businesses, particularly specialty manufacturers. A total of 82 German companies have operations in Alabama, more than any other foreign country, according to Alabama Department of Commerce data. Other European countries with a significant business presence in Alabama are France (51 companies), the United Kingdom (26 companies) and Sweden (11 companies).”

The Consulate General of France in Atlanta’s website points out that the “The death penalty was abolished in France under the Act of 9 October 1981, driven by the commitment and National Assembly speech of Robert Badinter, Minister of Justice at the time. This Act was a step forward in France’s long-standing campaign to promote human dignity.”

That’s true. But if Badinter were still alive and still actively agitating for death penalty abolition worldwide on behalf of France, he would be demanding to know how the French government—and the French people—can tolerate such massive financial investment by behemoth French companies in death penalty-loving states—states like Alabama. (In October, The New York Times’ Alexis Steinman reported Badinter “was inducted into the Panthéon, Paris’s illustrious burial place for French notables.” In so doing, “he became the 83rd person to be inducted there. His coffin joins the likes of Marie Curie and Victor Hugo, who, incidentally, wrote the anti-capital punishment novel ‘Le Dernier Jour d’un Condamné’ (‘Last Day of a Condemned Man’).”)

And if this issue of prodigious foreign investment in death penalty states was more known and more openly discussed, Badinter wouldn’t be the only French citizen complaining about French investment in Alabama—when Alabama keeps torturing human beings to death—far from it.

In “Death, Dissent, and Diplomacy: The U.S. Death Penalty as an Obstacle to Foreign Relations,” 13 Wm. & Mary Bill Rts. J. 309 (2004), Mark Warren, a human rights researcher and legal consultant, wrote: “The United States’ isolation on a core social policy issue would be little more than a statistical curiosity if the death penalty did not arouse such strong feelings abroad and cast so much discredit on America’s human rights leadership. Reflecting on his four years as U.S. Ambassador to France, Felix Rohatyn observed: [N]o single issue evoked as much passion and as much protest as executions in the United States. Repeated protests in front of the embassy in Paris, protests at our consulates and, just recently, a petition signed by 500,000 French men and women delivered to our embassy in Paris were part of a constant refrain.”

In closing his essay, Warren concluded: “The day is long gone when the United States could credibly argue that retention of the death penalty is a purely internal matter with no transnational repercussions. The rules for acceptable international conduct are changing, and the United States increasingly finds itself on the wrong side of what is now a fundamental human rights issue. America’s split with its Western colleagues over the propriety of executions has moved beyond polite disagreement and is directly impacting foreign policy objectives and undermining important bilateral relations. The stigma of the United States as one of the world’s leading executioners deprives its diplomacy of the moral high ground, while at the same time affording an unassailable rallying point for the growing opposition to American hegemony abroad. Retention of capital punishment distances the United States from its closest partners in ways both symbolic and tangible, and the costs of that isolation are rising steadily. The pernicious influence of the U.S. death penalty on foreign affairs will only compound over time, until the day that America finally reverses its solitary and shameful course.”

Over 20 years have passed since Warren’s well-reasoned prognosis, but still French and other foreign monies flow into Alabama’s coffers—amidst all the gassings and lethal injections.