From the window of his fourth-floor office near the Toulouse conference centre, Didier Cujives, president of Midi-Pyrénées Expansion, the regional economic development agency, can count 12 whirling tower cranes.

It is a fitting view in a conurbation of 1.2m people that is in relentless modernisation and expansion, seamlessly melding new roads, underground railway lines, business parks and shopping outlets around a renovated historic centre.