For 65 years German electrical components maker Hager has straddled the Rhine with sites on either side, but lately the family-owned group has plumped for the French side to host its expansion plans.
Cuts to French business tax rates, help from local officials ready to go out of their way to identify sites for business expansion and even new wiggle room in notoriously rigid labour rules are making France a proposition hard to turn down, group chairman Daniel Hager told Reuters.
Seven years of pro-business reforms under President Emmanuel Macron have helped rebalance economic relations between the euro zone's two biggest economies.
Gone are the days when foreign investors would baulk at France's high taxes and 35-hour work week, compared with Germany's 40 hours, and France is also seeing record levels of foreign direct investment.
"Since President Macron's been in place, the business climate is distinctly more positive and welcoming to companies," Hager said.
While still investing in Germany, the group - a typical example of the small to midsize "Mittelstand" of often family-owned firms that account for 55% of German jobs - is ploughing 120 million euros ($130 million) into France's border region of Alsace.
With questions growing over Germany's economic growth model, Macron can worry less than his predecessors over whether France is at risk of being outclassed when he heads to Berlin on Sunday for the first state visit by a French president since 2000.
Back then, France had just enshrined in law a 35-hour work week - a turnoff to many foreign investors - while Germany would later double down on labour market reforms that helped usher in a decade of strong export growth from 2006.
In more recent years, German growth has sputtered due to the country's over-dependence on exports to China and previously on cheap Russian gas while creaking infrastructure, high power prices and tight fiscal policy have also weighed.
By contrast, France's long-term commitment to nuclear energy - with plans in place to invest at least 52 billion euros in six new reactors - is an increasing attraction for foreign tech investors like Microsoft, which aims to build power-hungry data centres there.
RECIPE FOR SUCCESS
With Germany struggling to gain momentum and Britain held back by the long fallout from Brexit, France has been Europe's top destination for foreign direct investment since 2019, according to an annual survey consultants EY.
This year it has already won a record 15 billion euros in investment commitments at an annual "Choose France" event Macron hosts yearly at the Versailles Palace for global CEOs.
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