French President Emmanuel Macron hosted 140 CEOs at the Palace of Versailles on Monday - mostly US business leaders on their way to the World Economic Forum in Davos. The conference was a charm offensive aimed at encouraging foreign investment in France - a key priority of Macron. Elena Casas reports from Paris.

President Macron wants to encourage multinationals to choose France - and the slew of investments announced at this conference would seem to show they won't need much persuading. Facebook has revealed it will pour an extra 12.2 million dollars into its artificial intelligence centre in Paris - along with a scheme to finance scholarships to study tech subjects at French universities. Toyota is also pushing an extra 490 million dollars into its car factory in northern France - which local media reports say should create 700 jobs. The visiting CEOs are mostly American - and a recent survey of US investors shows 72 percent of them are optimistic about the French economy, a massive 30 percent rise on last year.

That's largely down to President Macron himself - he has promised to make the country more business friendly, notably pushing through labour law reforms to make it easier to hire and fire people as one of his first acts in office - although the first redundancies under the law were made only last week, and it's too soon to say if they will make a dent in France's stubbornly high unemployment rate. On Wednesday, Macron is set to make a major speech to business leaders in Davos - aiming to paint himself as the new face of the modern, globalised economy. Elena Casas, CGTN, Paris.