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BUSINESS DAY

As Brexit Looms, Paris Tries

a Business Makeover
By DAVID SEGAL DEC. 10, 2017
PARIS — The phone rings a lot at Paris Region
Entreprises, a one-stop shop for companies deciding
whether to move employees to the City of Light. Typically,
callers ask about visas and minutiae of employment law.
But not long ago, an executive from Japan called with a
stumper: Where, he asked, are the dancing clubs?

“It was a certain kind of club that nobody here had

ever heard of,” said Robin Rivaton, the organization’s
chief executive. “Kind of a social club for executives and
their wives. One of the guys here called around and found
one in the western part of Paris.”
 Until recently, this kind of personal service was
unimaginable. France has long been known for its open
hostility to corporations and its suspicion of personal
wealth. Taxes were high, regulations were baffling and
“It’s not possible” was the default answer to any question
— if a company could even find the right person to ask.

Now, the country is in the midst of a sweeping

attempt at national rebranding. Labor laws are being
changed to make hiring and firing easier. New legislation
has slashed a “wealth tax” that was said to drive
millionaires out of the country. Courts with English-
speaking judges are in the works, and a new international
school is under construction to cater to the children of
foreign executives.

There’s a sense of urgency behind these changes.

Hundreds of financial companies may need to relocate
thousands of London-based workers before Britain leaves
the European Union by the end of March 2019, the
withdrawal known as Brexit. Otherwise, these companies
could lose their financial passporting rights, which grants
them privileged access to the 27 countries that will remain
in the European Union.
 That has set off a high-stakes international
competition among a handful of cities hoping to become
Europe’s financial capital. Decision time is looming. The
Brexit negotiation breakthrough announced on Friday
merely solved preliminary issues that allow the next
round of talks to commence. Under the current timetable,
a final agreement must be signed well before the March
4
2019 deadline.
ARTICLES REMAINING
THIS MONTH

Paris is vying against Dublin, Frankfurt and Luxembourg

in a pageant that is not primarily about beauty. What is
prized most in boardrooms is an array of business-
friendly laws, regulations and culture — the sort of warm
welcome that Paris once defiantly refused to offer.

“When you grow up in France, none of the heroes you

learn about are entrepreneurs,” said Brigitte Granville, a
professor of economics at Queen Mary University of
London, who was raised in France. “When someone gets
rich in France, people immediately ask, ‘What did he do to
make this money? He must be a nasty person.’”

The origins of this attitude are usually traced to the

French Revolution, which, Ms. Granville explained,
elevated equality to a kind of religion. When François
Hollande announced during his presidential campaign in
2012 that “My enemy is the world of finance,” he was
summing up a fairly common sentiment.

Now, a new crop of French leaders, most notably the

free market-supporting president, Emmanuel Macron, are
vigorously trying to shed this anticapitalist reputation.
During his campaign, he visited London, home to as many
as 400,000 French expatriates, urging them to return to
France and “innovate.” And since his election, the
government has started a highly aggressive campaign to
poach jobs from London.

It began the same day that the Brexit vote results

were announced, on June 24 of last year. That afternoon,
Paris Region Entreprises splashed banner ads on dozens
of websites (“Choose Paris Region” was a not very catchy
slogan). A few weeks later, 4,000 letters were mailed to
companies around the globe.

By that October, officials with a business district in

Paris had posted cheeky billboards in London’s airports
and train stations, quipping, “Tired of the Fog, Try the
Frogs!” Then came schmoozing and briefings. In February
of this year, a delegation of French leaders in politics and
business met with more than 80 executives on the 37 floor
of the Shard, a landmark building in London’s financial
district.

The French government also appointed Christian

Noyer, a former Bank of France governor, to be the
country’s Brexit point man. A born diplomat, he cannot be
baited into belittling the competition, beyond calling
Frankfurt “small and provincial,” hastening to add, “some
people may like that.”

He rarely promotes what is most celebrated about

Paris, like its gorgeous streetscapes and stellar
restaurants, but he believes they will factor, at least a
little, into some companies’ relocation decisions.

A company can send staff members to any city they

want, Mr. Noyer said, during a brief interview in the lobby
of a London hotel. “But if they have a competitor who is
going to a nicer place, the best staff might, if they are
offered a job in a better city, leave after a few months.”

Local politicians have predicted that 10,000 Brexit-

related jobs will eventually move here, creating another
10,000 indirect jobs. Whether the city will come close to
that figure is unclear, but a handful of announcements
suggest that Paris is at least in the game.
 HSBC said this summer that it might move 1,000
employees to Paris from London. In September, Bank of
America was in talks to lease office space not far from the
Arc de Triomphe, with plans to initially move 300
employees there.

Within France, the legislative changes and Brexit

efforts have their share of critics, many of whom consider
it further evidence that Mr. Macron is the “president of
the rich.”

“The idea that companies won’t settle in France

because of high taxes is a false argument, that they tell us
to pass policies that are difficult to justify in the eyes of
the population,” said Alexandre Derigny a spokesman for
the General Confederation of Labour, a group of trade
unions.

France’s economic makeover has inspired some

derision outside of the country, too. It has the faint smell
of desperation to people like Nicolas Mackel, the chief
executive of Luxembourg for Finance, a public-private
partnership that promotes the country as a business hub.
He is proud to say that the grand duchy has not resorted
to the tactics deployed in Paris.
 “You’ll accuse me of bashing the French,” he said over
tea recently, “but earlier this year, they announced that
they would have regulators who speak English. We didn’t
need to do that because our regulators already speak
English and always have.”

For France, English-speaking government officials

would be little more than a promising start. The country
has so many bewildering layers of regulations that its
system is known, unaffectionately, as mille-feuille, a
reference to a densely layered pastry.

Some attempts to address this problem are

happening behind closed doors. One of those doors is on
the fourth floor of the French Finance Ministry, an
immense Brutalist building that is home to thousands of
civil servants and acres of standard-issue offices.

A room here was recently renovated to look like the

brainstorming space of a start-up. The Bercy Lab —
“Bercy” is the nickname of the ministry — has sleek
furniture and whiteboards, along with a few touches that
seem a bit goofy. A sign on the entrance door reads, in
French, “On your mark, get ready, innovate!”
 Since the lab opened in October, executives have been
conferring with members of Parliament on drafting a
wide-ranging law to improve the business environment,
expected to pass next year. Among the participants is Eric
Kayser, founder of the Maison Kayser chain of bakeries.
As mundane as such face-to-face discussions might
sound, they are a first.

“It’s really useful,” says Alice Zagury, president of the

Family, a firm that invests in European start-ups and
another Bercy Lab participant. “And it’s what we need to
do in France — to participate, to feel responsible, and not
to believe that the government will fix everything.”

But the ministry also offers a public reminder of one

of Paris’s enduring draws: great food. Ten chefs cook here
every weekday in a 5,400-square-foot kitchen under the
direction of Bruno Gricourt, who once worked at
Michelin-starred restaurants. Executives who visit for
Brexit-connected discussions, and stay for a meal, feast on
Mr. Gricourt’s menu — which changes daily.

“Grilled scallops with an emulsion of pumpkin and

fresh hazelnuts,” he said, describing an appetizer he had
made that day. “A very simple preparation that respects
the ingredients.”
 It could take years for France to truly alter its image,
if it is able to at all. But in addition to the commitments
already made by several banks, there are small signs of a
payoff.

In a mid-November Twitter post, Goldman Sachs’s

chief executive, Lloyd C. Blankfein, praised the French
government’s commitment to economic changes,
describing them as “first steps.”

“Struck by the positive energy here in Paris,” he

wrote. And just to underscore what his audience already
knew, he added, “And the food’s good too!”

Correction: December 11, 2017

An earlier version of this article misspelled the given name
and surname of the chief executive of Luxembourg for
Finance. He is Nicolas Mackel, not Nicholas Mackal. The
article also misstated where the Shard building is located. It
is in the center of London, not specifically in the financial
district.
Eloise Stark contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on December 11, 2017, on Page

A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Paris Tries On A Fresh
Look: Less Red Tape.
© 2017 The New York Times Company