In # 4, I want to keep looking at this field “as one person on the private-sector side,” and put France into that frame. When I spread out the world map while tracking startups and investors every day, the presence of Saint-Paul-lez-Durance in southern France inevitably looms large. That is because ITER, this huge international project, has been permanently installed on French territory as a kind of “stage on Earth where humanity will try to demonstrate fusion.”

Seen from France’s side, nuclear fusion does not look like just cutting‑edge science, nor merely another market that startups are entering. It feels much more like “a gigantic piece of infrastructure hosted by the state.” The country already has a deep foundation in nuclear power: heavy industry, materials, control systems, and regulatory frameworks are all in place. On top of that existing stack, “fusion as the next move” has been positioned. From the perspective of the VC and startup world that I follow, France seems less like “one of the main players” and more like a country that is trying to play the role of “provider of the stage set.”

What is fascinating is that this structure—where the state prepares the stage and invites players from around the world—ends up expanding the option set for the private side. For research institutes and companies within France, of course, but also for startups from other countries, paths are opening up such as “run demonstrations using ITER and its surrounding supply chain” and “bring the knowledge gained there back home for commercial reactor development.” Put differently, for both investors and founders, strategic decisions now include the question: “In which country’s stage do we retire which phase of technical risk?”

From Japan, when we look at this landscape, the fact that “we do not have ITER itself in our own country” may look like a handicap in the short term. But when we zoom out a bit, I start to feel that there is another possible division of roles: France takes on the huge experimental reactor and the political and fiscal risks that come with it, while Japan directs more of its resources toward the surrounding layers, next‑generation commercial reactors, and adjacent industries. Supply chains, measurement and control, materials, regulatory design, talent development—at which positions can Japanese players form complementary relationships with the French‑centered ecosystem? That question is increasingly becoming unavoidable when I, in my position, think about investment strategy.

Ultimately, how we evaluate France’s role in fusion depends entirely on “where we are standing when we look at this field.” At the level of the nation‑state, hosting a massive experimental reactor in southern France is a choice that demands serious resolve, fiscally and politically. From the viewpoint of private VCs and startups, on the other hand, a more practical and cool‑headed calculation is starting: “Given that stage as a premise, which technologies and business models do we assemble, and where?” For someone like me, trying to build a fusion‑ and space‑focused VC in Japan, France does not appear as “news from a distant country” but rather as “one of the critical stage mechanisms I will be engaging with for decades to come.” That is my honest feeling right now.