The urgent need for massive investment in the green transition has brought the State back into the spotlight - as “pure” market mechanisms appear to be unable to meet the challenge. Debates about the most appropriate role for the state and the most effective instruments that state actors should use to channel investment towards the green transition have been renewed. These debates are extremely important. However, this paper points to a widely overlooked issue: whatever the types of instruments for state-led investment implemented, if the objectives are ill-designed, investment won’t go to the green transition. This paper thus tackles the following question: how are political priorities determined between competing objectives in state-led investment programs? The paper seeks to answer this question in three steps. First, it shows that state-led investment has increased dramatically for the last two decades and includes a wide varieties of instruments corresponding to different typical roles of the state. Second, it develops a typology of political priorities for state-led investment under the three categories of financial anaesthesia, industrial policy and green transition. Third, it shows that the choices between competing objectives of state-led investment are not determined by the types of instruments implemented but are largely associated with the governing regime leading to the establishment of state-led investment programs. When Ministries are in charge (they mostly are), financial anaesthesia and industrial policy are prioritzed. When outsiders (parliaments, activists…) are involved, more likely to prioritize (attempts at) transformative green finance. To do so, the paper builds on an original database of state-led investment programs in France since 2010 as well as on a comparative case studies of the policymaking processes leading to two state-led investment programs in France.