As a country, France’s reputation for its red tape, inflexible labour markets and high taxes is legendary. Only last week a report released by the World Bank ranked France as the 31st most business-friendly economy in the world, behind Thailand, Georgia and Saudi Arabia.
But for all the bad publicity over its 35-hour week and strike-prone unions, Paris continues to rank year after year second only to London as the top European city in which to locate a business, according to property consultancy Cushman & Wakefield’s European cities monitor, which surveys 500 leading companies on the subject every year.
