The economy of Paris is based largely on services and commerce: of the 390,480 of its enterprises, 80.6 percent are engaged in commerce, transportation, and diverse services, 6.5 percent in construction, and just 3.8 percent in industry.
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 kmツイ (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
region (Paris Region), is the most important center of economic activity in France, accounting for about thirty percent of the French
GDP
Gross domestic product (GDP) is a monetary measure of the market value of all the final goods and services produced and sold (not resold) in a specific time period by countries. Due to its complex and subjective nature this measure is often ...
.
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 kmツイ (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
had the fourth largest
metropolitan economy
A metropolitan economy refers to the cohesive, naturally evolving concentration of industries, commerce, markets, firms, housing, human capital, infrastructure and other economic elements that are comprised in a particular metropolitan area. Rat ...
in the world in 2011 according to the
Brookings Institution
The Brookings Institution, often stylized as simply Brookings, is an American research group founded in 1916. Located on Think Tank Row in Washington, D.C., the organization conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in ec ...
and first in
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
. The
Paris region
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 kmツイ (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
is Europe's richest region with a GDP (PPP) at over $1 trillion equivalent to that of the
Netherlands
)
, anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
or
Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
and higher than countries like
Switzerland
). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchテ「tel ...
,
Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...
or
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...
, ahead of
North Rhine-Westphalia
North Rhine-Westphalia (german: Nordrhein-Westfalen, ; li, Noordrien-Wesfale ; nds, Noordrhien-Westfalen; ksh, Noodrhing-Wテ、テ淌歿aale), commonly shortened to NRW (), is a States of Germany, state (''Land'') in Western Germany. With more tha ...
in
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
and
Greater London
Greater may refer to:
*Greatness, the state of being great
*Greater than, in inequality (mathematics), inequality
*Greater (film), ''Greater'' (film), a 2016 American film
*Greater (flamingo), the oldest flamingo on record
*Greater (song), "Greate ...
in the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
. It has the highest per capita GDP of any French region and the third highest of any region in the
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...
.
The story is similar in the
Paris Region
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 kmツイ (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
, or テ四e-de-France, as a whole. 76.7 percent of enterprises are engaged in commerce and services, and 3.4 percent in industry. 59.5 percent of employees in the region are engaged in commerce, transport and diverse services, 26.9 percent in public administration, health and social services, 8.2 percent industry, and 5.2 percent in construction.
The top ten French companies listed in the
Fortune Global 500
The ''Fortune'' Global 500, also known as Global 500, is an annual ranking of the top 500 corporations worldwide as measured by revenue. The list is compiled and published annually by ''Fortune'' magazine.
Methodology
Until 1989, it listed onl ...
for 2015 all had their headquarters in the Paris Region, nine within the City of Paris and one,
TotalEnergies
TotalEnergies SE is a French Multinational corporation, multinational integrated energy and List of oil exploration and production companies, petroleum company founded in 1924 and one of the seven Big Oil, supermajor oil companies. Its businesses ...
, in the
Hauts-de-Seine
Hauts-de-Seine (; ) is a Departments of France, dテゥpartement in the テ四e-de-France Regions of France, region, Northern France. It covers Paris's western inner Banlieue, suburbs. It is bordered by Paris, Seine-Saint-Denis and Val-de-Marne to the e ...
Department, in the business district of
La Defense
LA most frequently refers to Los Angeles, the second largest city in the United States.
La, LA, or L.A. may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment Music
* La (musical note), or A, the sixth note
* "L.A.", a song by Elliott Smith on ''Figure ...
. The fourth-largest company,
Sociテゥtテゥ Gテゥnテゥrale
Sociテゥtテゥ Gテゥnテゥrale S.A. (), colloquially known in English as SocGen (), is a French-based multinational financial services company founded in 1864, registered in downtown Paris and headquartered nearby in La Dテゥfense.
Sociテゥtテゥ Gテゥnテゥrale ...
, has its registered headquarters in Paris and its operational offices in La Defense. Other notable clusters of major companies are located at
Issy-les-Moulineaux
Issy-les-Moulineaux () is a commune in the southwestern suburban area of Paris, France, lying on the left bank of the river Seine. Its citizens are called ''Issテゥens'' in French. It is one of Paris' entrances and is located from Notre-Dame Cath ...
(media companies);
Boulogne-Billancourt
Boulogne-Billancourt (; often colloquially called simply Boulogne, until 1924 Boulogne-sur-Seine, ) is a wealthy and prestigious Communes of France, commune in the Parisian area, located from its Kilometre zero, centre. It is a Subprefectures in ...
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 kmツイ (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
economy of France
An economy is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that emphasize the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with the p ...
in 2021 while the economy of the
Paris metropolitan area
The Paris metropolitan area (french: aire d'attraction de Paris) is a statistical area that describes the reach of commuter movement to and from Paris, France and its surrounding suburbs.
Overview
In 2020 France's national INSEE statistical ...
窶 the largest in Europe with London窶波enerates around 1/3 of France's GDP or around $1.0 trillion.
In 2021, the
gross domestic product
Gross domestic product (GDP) is a money, monetary Measurement in economics, measure of the market value of all the final goods and services produced and sold (not resold) in a specific time period by countries. Due to its complex and subjec ...
(GDP) of the
Paris Region
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 kmツイ (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
was $981 billion. The PIB per inhabitant of the region was 竄ャ65,200 (US $), the highest in France. The GDP of the Paris Region accounted for 31 percent of the GDP of Metropolitan France.
In 2022 the GDP of the Paris Region was the largest in Europe, ahead of
North Rhine-Westphalia
North Rhine-Westphalia (german: Nordrhein-Westfalen, ; li, Noordrien-Wesfale ; nds, Noordrhien-Westfalen; ksh, Noodrhing-Wテ、テ淌歿aale), commonly shortened to NRW (), is a States of Germany, state (''Land'') in Western Germany. With more tha ...
in Germany and
Greater London
Greater may refer to:
*Greatness, the state of being great
*Greater than, in inequality (mathematics), inequality
*Greater (film), ''Greater'' (film), a 2016 American film
*Greater (flamingo), the oldest flamingo on record
*Greater (song), "Greate ...
in the United Kingdom. The GDP per inhabitant was the 4th highest in Europe, after
Luxembourg
Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lテォtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duchテゥ de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Groテ殄erzogtum Luxemburg is a small lan ...
,
Brussels
Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Rテゥgion de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...
, and
Hamburg
(male), (female) en, Hamburger(s),
Hamburgian(s)
, timezone1 = Central (CET)
, utc_offset1 = +1
, timezone1_DST = Central (CEST)
, utc_offset1_DST = +2
, postal ...
.
The Paris regional GDP grew steadily by an average of 2.3 percent a year between 1993 and 2007. However, during the recession of 2009, the GDP declined sharply by 4.9 percent, before recovering and growing again.
The Paris regional economy is largely a tertiary, or services, economy. The tertiary sector, including business and financial services, government, education, and health, accounted for 90 percent of the value added, placing the Paris region just behind Greater London and Brussels. The value added by industry dropped from 12 percent in 2000 to 8 percent in 2011.
Official estimations ranked the Paris region by GDP as the 5th-largest urban economy in the world, after Tokyo, New York, Los Angeles and Seoul:
(See
List of cities by GDP
This is a list of cities in the world by gross domestic product (GDP). The United Nations uses three definitions for what constitutes a city, as not all cities may be classified using the same criteria. Cities may be defined as the cities proper ...
for more figures.)
Fortune Global 500 companies
In 2015, the Paris Region hosted the world headquarters of 29 of the 31 French companies listed in the
Fortune Global 500
The ''Fortune'' Global 500, also known as Global 500, is an annual ranking of the top 500 corporations worldwide as measured by revenue. The list is compiled and published annually by ''Fortune'' magazine.
Methodology
Until 1989, it listed onl ...
, the 500 largest
corporation
A corporation is an organization窶盃sually a group of people or a company窶蚤uthorized by the state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law "born out of statute"; a legal person in legal context) and r ...
s in the world by
revenue
In accounting, revenue is the total amount of income generated by the sale of goods and services related to the primary operations of the business.
Commercial revenue may also be referred to as sales or as turnover. Some companies receive reven ...
. The top twelve French companies listed in the
Fortune Global 500
The ''Fortune'' Global 500, also known as Global 500, is an annual ranking of the top 500 corporations worldwide as measured by revenue. The list is compiled and published annually by ''Fortune'' magazine.
Methodology
Until 1989, it listed onl ...
for 2015 all have their headquarters in the Paris Region in either the city or the suburbs.
Paris Region employment by sector
The economy of both Paris and the Paris Region is primarily a service economy. The part of industry in the Paris Region economy has been steadily shrinking; the number of industrial employees dropped from 532,539, or 9.6 percent of the working population, in 2007 to 463,201, or 8.2 percent, in 2012. Employment in the Paris Regional economy, like that of the economy of the City of Paris, is overwhelming in commerce, services, transport, public administration, education, health and social welfare.
The picture is very similar in the City of Paris itself, where commerce, services and government account for more than ninety percent of employment in 2012.
Employment by business districts
The Paris Region had 5.4 million salaried employees in 2010, of whom 2.2 million were concentrated in 39 ''pテエles d'emplois'' or business districts. The largest of these, in terms of number of employees, is known in French as the QCA, or ''quartier central des affaires''; it is in the western part of the City of Paris, in the 2nd, 8th, 9th, 16th and 18th arrondissements. In 2010 it was the workplace of 500,000 salaried employees, about thirty percent of the salaried employees in Paris and ten percent of those in the テ四e-de-France. The largest sectors of activity in the central business district were finance and insurance (16 percent of employees in the district) and business services (15 percent). The district also includes a large concentration of department stores, shopping areas, hotels and restaurants, as well a government offices and ministries.
The second-largest business district in terms of employment is
La Dテゥfense
La Dテゥfense () is a major business district in France, located west of the city limits of Paris. It is part of the Paris metropolitan area in the テ四e-de-France region, located in the department of Hauts-de-Seine in the communes of Courbevoie, ...
, just west of the city, where many companies installed their offices in the 1990s. In 2010 it was the workplace of 144,600 employees, of whom 38 percent worked in finance and insurance, 16 percent in business support services. Two other important districts,
Neuilly-sur-Seine
Neuilly-sur-Seine (; literally 'Neuilly on Seine'), also known simply as Neuilly, is a commune in the department of Hauts-de-Seine in France, just west of Paris. Immediately adjacent to the city, the area is composed of mostly select residentia ...
and
Levallois-Perret
Levallois-Perret () is a commune in the Hauts-de-Seine department and テ四e-de-France region of north-central France. It lies some from the centre of Paris in the north-western suburbs of the French capital. It is the most densely populated ...
, are extensions of the Paris business district and of La Defense. Another district, including
Boulogne-Billancourt
Boulogne-Billancourt (; often colloquially called simply Boulogne, until 1924 Boulogne-sur-Seine, ) is a wealthy and prestigious Communes of France, commune in the Parisian area, located from its Kilometre zero, centre. It is a Subprefectures in ...
,
Issy-les-Moulineaux
Issy-les-Moulineaux () is a commune in the southwestern suburban area of Paris, France, lying on the left bank of the river Seine. Its citizens are called ''Issテゥens'' in French. It is one of Paris' entrances and is located from Notre-Dame Cath ...
and the southern part of the 15th arrondissement, is a center of activity for the media and information technology.
Paris economy by sector
Banking and insurance
Six of the twelve largest companies in the Paris region are banks and insurance companies. The largest banks, in order of 2014 revenue, are
BNP Paribas
BNP Paribas is a French international banking group, founded in 2000 from the merger between Banque Nationale de Paris (BNP, "National Bank of Paris") and Paribas, formerly known as the Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas. The full name of the grou ...
;
Sociテゥtテゥ Gテゥnテゥrale
Sociテゥtテゥ Gテゥnテゥrale S.A. (), colloquially known in English as SocGen (), is a French-based multinational financial services company founded in 1864, registered in downtown Paris and headquartered nearby in La Dテゥfense.
Sociテゥtテゥ Gテゥnテゥrale ...
;
Credit Agricole
Credit (from Latin verb ''credit'', meaning "one believes") is the trust which allows one party to provide money or resources to another party wherein the second party does not reimburse the first party immediately (thereby generating a debt), ...
, and
Groupe BPCE
Groupe BPCE (for Banque Populaire Caisse d'Epargne) is a major French banking group formed by the 2009 merger of two major retail banking groups, Groupe Caisse d'テ英argne and Groupe Banque Populaire. As of 2021, it was France's fourth largest ba ...
. The largest insurance companies are
AXA
Axa S.A. (styled as ''AXA'' or GIG in the Middle East) is a French multinational insurance company. The head office is in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, France. It also provides investment management and other financial services.
The Ax ...
(the second largest French company, by revenue, in 2014) and
CNP Assurances
CNP Assurances S.A. is a major French insurance corporation. CNP stands for ''Caisse Nationale de Prテゥvoyance''. It is listed on the Fortune Global 500. The company was formed in 1959 as a subsidiary of Caisse des dテゥpテエts et consignations, which ...
.
A 2015 survey ranking banks around the world by assets ranked BNP Paribas the 7th largest bank in the world; Credit Agricole in tenth place, and Societe Generale in 20th place.
French banks have traditionally had their main offices in the center of Paris, not far from the Opera and the
Banque de France
The Bank of France ( French: ''Banque de France''), headquartered in Paris, is the central bank of France. Founded in 1800, it began as a private institution for managing state debts and issuing notes. It is responsible for the accounts of the F ...
, the French central bank. The headquarters of BNP Paribas is in the 9th arrondissement on rue Bergテゥre.
Sociテゥtテゥ Gテゥnテゥrale
Sociテゥtテゥ Gテゥnテゥrale S.A. (), colloquially known in English as SocGen (), is a French-based multinational financial services company founded in 1864, registered in downtown Paris and headquartered nearby in La Dテゥfense.
Sociテゥtテゥ Gテゥnテゥrale ...
has its registered main office on Boulevard Haussmann in the 9th arrondissement, but has its operational headquarters in
Nanterre
Nanterre (, ) is the prefecture of the Hauts-de-Seine department in the western suburbs of Paris. It is located some northwest of the centre of Paris. In 2018, the commune had a population of 96,807.
The eastern part of Nanterre, bordering t ...
, in
La Defense
LA most frequently refers to Los Angeles, the second largest city in the United States.
La, LA, or L.A. may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment Music
* La (musical note), or A, the sixth note
* "L.A.", a song by Elliott Smith on ''Figure ...
. Credit Agricole has its main office in
Montrouge
Montrouge () is a commune in the southern Parisian suburbs, located from the centre of Paris. It is one of the most densely populated municipalities in Europe. After a long period of decline, the population has increased again in recent years.
...
in the southern Paris suburbs. BPCE has its main office on Avenue Pierre Mendティs in the 1st arrondissement.
Automobiles
Paris was the birthplace of the French automobile industry, and in 2014 France was the 13th largest automobile manufacturer in the world by unit production, and the third-largest in Europe, after Germany and Spain. Paris is home to two major auto-manufacturing firms;
PSA Group
The PSA Group (), legally known as Peugeot S.A. (Peugeot Sociテゥtテゥ Anonyme, trading as Groupe PSA; formerly known as PSA Peugeot Citroテォn from 1991 to 2016) was a French multinational automotive manufacturing company which produced automobiles ...
, which owns the
Peugeot
Peugeot (, , ) is a French brand of automobiles owned by Stellantis.
The family business that preceded the current Peugeot companies was founded in 1810, with a steel foundry that soon started making hand tools and kitchen equipment, and the ...
and
Citroテォn
Citroテォn () is a French automobile brand. The "Automobiles Citroテォn" manufacturing company was founded in March 1919 by Andrテゥ Citroテォn. Citroテォn is owned by Stellantis since 2021 and previously was part of the PSA Group after Peugeot acquired ...
brands, and Renault, which owns both the
Renault
Groupe Renault ( , , , also known as the Renault Group in English; legally Renault S.A.) is a French multinational automobile manufacturer established in 1899. The company produces a range of cars and vans, and in the past has manufactured ...
brand and
Dacia
Dacia (, ; ) was the land inhabited by the Dacians, its core in Transylvania, stretching to the Danube in the south, the Black Sea in the east, and the Tisza in the west. The Carpathian Mountains were located in the middle of Dacia. It thus r ...
of Romania,
Renault Samsung Motors
Renault Korea Motors ( ko, ・エクス罷ヲャ符梵徐ーィ), is a South Korean car manufacturer headquartered in Busan where its single assembly site is also located, with additional facilities at Seoul (administration), Giheung (research and develop ...
of South Korea, and 43 percent of
Nissan
, trade name, trading as Nissan Motor Corporation and often shortened to Nissan, is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automobile manufacturer headquartered in Nishi-ku, Yokohama, Japan. The company sells ...
. The headquarters of Renault is in
Boulogne-Billancourt
Boulogne-Billancourt (; often colloquially called simply Boulogne, until 1924 Boulogne-sur-Seine, ) is a wealthy and prestigious Communes of France, commune in the Parisian area, located from its Kilometre zero, centre. It is a Subprefectures in ...
, in the Paris Region, where for decades the company had a huge assembly plant, now closed.
Renault Trucks
Renault Trucks is a French commercial truck manufacturer with corporate headquarters at Saint-Priest near Lyon. Originally part of Renault, it has been a subsidiary of the Volvo Group since 2001.
From its beginnings in 1978 to 2002, the comp ...
is a major producer of commercial vehicles and is owned by
Volvo
The Volvo Group ( sv, Volvokoncernen; legally Aktiebolaget Volvo, shortened to AB Volvo, stylized as VOLVO) is a Swedish multinational manufacturing corporation headquartered in Gothenburg. While its core activity is the production, distributio ...
. In 2015 the French government increased its share of ownership in Renault to 19.73 percent, in order to have more control over the social policy of the company. In 2012 PSA Group was the second-largest automobile manufacturer in Europe, and the ninth-largest in the world, with 2.9 million units. In 2009 it had been the 6th largest automobile manufacturer. The headquarters of the company is in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. A large part of the automobiles of both companies are made outside France.
Energy
The Paris Region is the home of
Total
Total may refer to:
Mathematics
* Total, the summation of a set of numbers
* Total order, a partial order without incomparable pairs
* Total relation, which may also mean
** connected relation (a binary relation in which any two elements are comp ...
, one of the five largest oil companies in the world. It is the largest enterprise in France by revenue, and the 14th largest company in the 2015
Fortune Global 500
The ''Fortune'' Global 500, also known as Global 500, is an annual ranking of the top 500 corporations worldwide as measured by revenue. The list is compiled and published annually by ''Fortune'' magazine.
Methodology
Until 1989, it listed onl ...
. Total operates in 130 countries around the world, Its headquarters is located in
Courbevoie
Courbevoie () is a commune located in the Hauts-de-Seine Department of the テ四e-de-France region of France. It is in the suburbs of the city of Paris, from the center of Paris. The centre of Courbevoie is situated from the city limits of Par ...
, in the business district of
La Defense
LA most frequently refers to Los Angeles, the second largest city in the United States.
La, LA, or L.A. may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment Music
* La (musical note), or A, the sixth note
* "L.A.", a song by Elliott Smith on ''Figure ...
.
Engie
Engie SA is a French multinational utility company, headquartered in La Dテゥfense, Courbevoie, which operates in the fields of energy transition, electricity generation and distribution, natural gas, nuclear, renewable energy and petroleum. ...
is the second-largest energy company in France and in the Paris region. Formerly known before April 2015 as GDF-Suez, it is a multinational electric utility company, involved in electric generation and distribution, natural gas and renewable energy. It was founded in 1858 as the Universal Suez Canal Company, to build the
Suez Canal
The Suez Canal ( arz, ルほ勺ル借ァリゥル ルアルリウル詔胎異勺館坪ウル, ') is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia. The long canal is a popular ...
. It purchased the solar power electricity producer
Solairedirect
Solairedirect is a global renewable energy company focused on solar power. Headquartered in Paris, the company is the main solar power producer in France and has also international operations in the US, Chile, India and South Africa. In develops, ...
in 2015, making it the largest provider in France. Its headquarters is located in
Courbevoie
Courbevoie () is a commune located in the Hauts-de-Seine Department of the テ四e-de-France region of France. It is in the suburbs of the city of Paris, from the center of Paris. The centre of Courbevoie is situated from the city limits of Par ...
, in the business district of
La Defense
LA most frequently refers to Los Angeles, the second largest city in the United States.
La, LA, or L.A. may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment Music
* La (musical note), or A, the sixth note
* "L.A.", a song by Elliott Smith on ''Figure ...
. According to the
Fortune Global 500
The ''Fortune'' Global 500, also known as Global 500, is an annual ranking of the top 500 corporations worldwide as measured by revenue. The list is compiled and published annually by ''Fortune'' magazine.
Methodology
Until 1989, it listed onl ...
in 2015, it is the 7th largest company in France by revenue, and the 73rd in the world.
テ瑛ectricitテゥ de France
テ瑛ectricitテゥ de France S.A. (literally ''Electricity of France''), commonly known as EDF, is a French multinational electric utility company, largely owned by the French state. Headquartered in Paris, with 竄ャ71.2 billion in revenues in 2 ...
, or EDF, is the 8th largest French company by revenue and the 78th in the 2015 Global 500. Mostly owned by French government, the company operates 58 nuclear reactors located on twenty sites around France. The headquarters is at 22-30 Avenue Wagram in the 8th arrondissement in Paris, while it also has a large office building in
Courbevoie
Courbevoie () is a commune located in the Hauts-de-Seine Department of the テ四e-de-France region of France. It is in the suburbs of the city of Paris, from the center of Paris. The centre of Courbevoie is situated from the city limits of Par ...
in the
La Defense
LA most frequently refers to Los Angeles, the second largest city in the United States.
La, LA, or L.A. may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment Music
* La (musical note), or A, the sixth note
* "L.A.", a song by Elliott Smith on ''Figure ...
business district.
Food and drugstores
Paris hosts the headquarters of Carrefour S.A., the largest food and drug store chain in France, and fourth in the world according to the 2015 Fortune Global 500, after
Wal-Mart
Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores from the United States, headquarter ...
and
Costco
Costco Wholesale Corporation (doing business as Costco Wholesale and also known simply as Costco) is an American multinational corporation which operates a chain of membership-only big-box retail stores (warehouse club). As of 2022, Costco i ...
in the U.S. and
Tesco
Tesco plc () is a British multinational groceries and general merchandise retailer headquartered in Welwyn Garden City, England. In 2011 it was the third-largest retailer in the world measured by gross revenues and the ninth-largest in th ...
in Britain. Carrefour is a multinational company with 1,452 hypermarkets at the end of 2011. It ranked 64t in the Fortune 500. The headquarters is located in Boulogne-Billancourt, in the Paris suburbs.
The second-largest French chain,
Auchan
Auchan () is a French multinational retail group headquartered in Croix, France. It was founded in 1961 by Gテゥrard Mulliez and is owned by the Mulliez family, who has 95% stake in the company.
With 354,851 employees, of which 261,000 have 5% s ...
, is in Croix, in northern France, but the third, Finatis, or
Groupe Casino
Casino Group or Casino Guichard-Perrachon is a French mass-market retail group. It was founded on 2 August 1898 by Geoffroy Guichard under the corporate name Guichard-Perrachon & Co.
Casino Group is the source of many innovations such as the ...
, is headquartered in the Paris Region. It ranked 148 in the Fortune Global 500 in 2015.
Luxury goods, fashion and cosmetics
Paris has a long history, dating back to the Middle Ages, of producing
luxury goods
In economics, a luxury good (or upmarket good) is a good for which demand increases more than what is proportional as income rises, so that expenditures on the good become a greater proportion of overall spending. Luxury goods are in contrast to n ...
for the aristocracy and the wealthy. Today the most important luxury goods firm in Paris is
LVMH
LVMH Moテォt Hennessy Louis Vuitton (), commonly known as LVMH, is a French holding multinational corporation and conglomerate specializing in luxury goods, headquartered in Paris. The company was formed in 1987 through the merger of fashion house ...
, headed by
Bernard Arnault
Bernard Jean テ液ienne Arnault (; born 5 March 1949) is a French business magnate, investor, and art collector. He is the co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of LVMH Moテォt Hennessy 窶 Louis Vuitton SE, the world's largest luxury ...
, who also heads
Christian Dior S.A.
Christian Dior SE (), commonly known as Dior (stylized DIOR), is a French luxury fashion house controlled and chaired by French businessman Bernard Arnault, who also heads LVMH, the world's largest luxury group. Dior itself holds 42.36% shares ...
, a major international fashion company, which has its headquarters at 30
Avenue Montaigne
Avenue Montaigne () is a street in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, France.
Origin of the name
Avenue Montaigne was originally called the Allテゥe des Veuves (widows' alley) because women in mourning gathered there, but the street has changed muc ...
in the 8th arrondissement. Dior holds 42.36 percent of the stock of LVMH and 59.01 percent of the voting rights in LVMH. The LVMH group includes
Louis Vuitton
Louis Vuitton Malletier, commonly known as Louis Vuitton (, ), is a French high-end Luxury goods, luxury fashion house and company founded in 1854 by Louis Vuitton (designer), Louis Vuitton. The label's LV monogram appears on most of its produc ...
and the champagne maker Moテォt Hennessy, which merged in 1987. LVMH has sixty subsidiaries, including
Bulgari
Bulgari (, ; stylized as BVLGARI) is an Italian luxury fashion house founded in 1884 and known for its jewellery, watches, fragrances, accessories, and leather goods.
While the majority of design, production and marketing is overseen and exec ...
, the cosmetics store
Sephora
Sephora is a French multinational retailer of personal care and beauty products. Featuring nearly 340 brands, along with its own private label, Sephora Collection, Sephora offers beauty products including cosmetics, skincare, body, fragrance, n ...
, and the department stores
Bon Marchテゥ
''Bon'', also spelled Bテカn () and also known as Yungdrung Bon (, "eternal Bon"), is a Tibetan culture, Tibetan religious tradition with many similarities to Tibetan Buddhism and also many unique features.Samuel 2012, pp. 220-221. Bon initiall ...
and
Samaritaine
La Samaritaine (French pronunciation: a samaハ(tノ嬾 is a large department store in Paris, France, located in the first arrondissement. The nearest mテゥtro station is Pont-Neuf, directly in front at the quai du Louvre and the rue de la Monnai ...
. The products of the group include ready-to-wear, fashion accessories, footwear, timepieces, perfumes, cosmetics and skincare products. The group had revenue of 53.7 billion euros in 2018.
The great rival of LVMH is the luxury group
Kering
Kering () is a French-based multinational corporation specializing in luxury goods. It owns the brands Balenciaga, Bottega Veneta, Gucci, Alexander McQueen and Yves Saint Laurent.
The timber-trading company Pinault S.A. was founded in 1963, b ...
, founded in 1963 by
Franテァois Pinault
Franテァois Pinault (born 21 August 1936) is a French billionaire businessman, founder of the luxury group Kering and the investment holding company Artテゥmis.
Pinault started his business in the timber industry in the early 1960s. Taken public in ...
, and now run by his son,
Franテァois-Henri Pinault
Franテァois-Henri Pinault (; born ) is a French businessman, the chairman and CEO of Kering since 2005, and president of Groupe Artテゥmis since 2003. Under his leadership, the retail conglomerate PPR was transformed into the luxury fashion group Ker ...
. It controls many well-known brands, including Saint-Laurent,
Gucci
Gucci (, ; ) is an Italian high-end luxury fashion house based in Florence, Italy. Its product lines include handbags, ready-to-wear, footwear, accessories, and home decoration; and it licenses its name and branding to Coty, Inc. for fragrance ...
Boucheron
Boucheron () is a French luxury jewellery and watches house located in Paris, 26 Place Vendテエme, owned by Kering.
History
At the origins
The House of Boucheron is a French family dynasty founded by Frederic Boucheron in 1858, with the opening ...
,
Balenciaga
Balenciaga SA ( ) is a luxury fashion house founded in 1919 by the Spanish designer Cristテウbal Balenciaga in San Sebastian, Spain. Balenciaga produces ready-to-wear, footwear, handbags, and accessories and licenses its name and branding to C ...
,
Bottega Veneta
Bottega Veneta () is an Italian luxury fashion house based in Milan, Italy. Its product lines include ready-to-wear, handbags, shoes, accessories, and jewelry; and it licenses its name and branding to Coty, Inc. for fragrances.
History
Found ...
, and had revenues in 2020 of 13.1 billion euros. Kering has its headquarters at 40 rue de Sティvres in the
7th arrondissement of Paris
The 7th arrondissement of Paris (''VIIe arrondissement'') is one of the 20 Arrondissements of Paris, arrondissements of the capital city of France. In spoken French, this arrondissement is referred to as ''le septiティme''.
The arrondissement, ca ...
, in the former Hテエpital Laennec.
L'Oreal is the world's largest cosmetics company, and ranked 395 in the Fortune Global 500. Founded in 1909, its headquarters is located in Clichy, in the
Hauts-de-Seine
Hauts-de-Seine (; ) is a Departments of France, dテゥpartement in the テ四e-de-France Regions of France, region, Northern France. It covers Paris's western inner Banlieue, suburbs. It is bordered by Paris, Seine-Saint-Denis and Val-de-Marne to the e ...
Department.
Internet and telecommunications
The largest telecom company and internet provider in France is
Orange S.A.
Orange S.A. (), formerly France Tテゥlテゥcom S.A. (stylized as france telecom) is a French multinational telecommunications corporation. It has 266 million customers worldwide and employs 89,000 people in France, and 59,000 elsewhere. In 2015, ...
, known until 2000 as
France Tテゥlテゥcom
Orange S.A. (), formerly France Tテゥlテゥcom S.A. (stylized as france telecom) is a French multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications corporation. It has 266 million customers worldwide and employs 89,000 people in France, and 5 ...
. It is the 15th largest telecom company in the world, and number 43 in the Fortune Global 500. it had revenue of 39.445 billion Euros in 2014, and has 230 million customers worldwide. It was founded in 1994, and acquired by France Telecom in 2000. The headquarters of Orange is at 78 rue Olivier des Serres in the 15th arrondissement.
The second giant telecom in Paris is
Numericable-SFR
SFR (; ''Sociテゥtテゥ franテァaise du radiotテゥlテゥphone'', ) is a French telecommunications company.
As of December 2015, it had 21.9 million customers in Metropolitan France for mobile services, and provided 6.35 million households with high-spee ...
, with 22.39 million subscribers, and revenue of 12.63 billion dollars in 2014. The SFR stands for ''Societテゥ franテァaise du radiotテゥlテゥphone'', or French radio-telephone company, founded in 1987 before the Internet age. It is currently owned by a Luxembourg-based conglomerate, the Altice group. The company's registered headquarters is on 1 square Bela Bartok in the 15th arrondissement, while its new administrative headquarters is in the suburb of Saint-Denis, just north of Paris.
Other major telecom companies in the Paris region include
Bouygues Telecom
Bouygues Telecom () is a French mobile phone, Internet service provider and IPTV company, part of the Bouygues group. It is the third oldest mobile network operator in France, after Orange and SFR, and before Free Mobile. Its headquarters, desig ...
. The company, part of the Bouygues Group, primarily a construction company, had revenue of 4.32 billion Euros in 2014 and 13.549 million subscribers. The main office of Bouygues Telcom is at 37-39 rue Boissiテゥre in the 16th arrondissement.
Free Mobile
Free Mobile () is a French wireless service provider, part of the Iliad group. It was the fourth mobile network operator to obtain a metropolitan French 3G license in 2009. It also obtained a 4G license in 2011.
Free Mobile provides wireless ...
is the newest and 4th largest internet provider in France, founded in 2007, with 11 million subscribers and revenue of 1.6 billion Euros in 2014. It is part of the
Iliad SA
Iliad S.A. is a French provider of telecommunication services. It is based in Paris and its operations comprise fixed and mobile telephony services, prepaid phone cards and internet access providing and hosting services. The company was founde ...
group, founded by
Xavier Niel
Xavier Niel (born 25 August 1967) is a French billionaire businessman involved in the telecommunications and technology industry. He is best known as founder and majority shareholder of the French Internet service provider and mobile operator Il ...
in 1990. The headquarters of Free Mobile is the Free Center, 8 rue de la Ville-テ益テゥque in the 8th arrondissement.
Media and entertainment
The major digital media company located in Paris is
Vivendi
Vivendi SE is a French mass media holding company headquartered in Paris. Widely known as the owner of Gameloft, Groupe Canal+, Havas, Editis, Prisma Media, Vivendi Village and Dailymotion, the company has activities in television, film, video ...
, which is the leading film and audiovisual production company in the EU. It owns the TV channel and movie producer
Canal+
Canal+ (Canal Plus, , meaning 'Channel Plus'; sometimes abbreviated C+ or Canal) is a French premium television channel launched in 1984. It is 100% owned by the Groupe Canal+, which in turn is owned by Vivendi. The channel broadcasts several ki ...
, as well as the
Universal Music
Universal Music Group N.V. (often abbreviated as UMG and referred to as just Universal Music) is a Netherlands, Dutch窶填nited States, American multinational Music industry, music corporation under Law of the Netherlands, Dutch law. UMG's cor ...
group in the United States, and the video-sharing website
Dailymotion
Dailymotion is a French video-sharing technology platform owned by Vivendi. North American launch partners included Vice Media, Bloomberg and Hearst Digital Media. It is among the earliest known platforms to support HD (720p) resolution video. ...
. It had revenue in 2013 of 22.135 billion euros. Its headquarters is located on Avenue de Friedland in the 8th arrondissement. Canal Plus has its headquarters in the business district of
Issy-les-Moulineaux
Issy-les-Moulineaux () is a commune in the southwestern suburban area of Paris, France, lying on the left bank of the river Seine. Its citizens are called ''Issテゥens'' in French. It is one of Paris' entrances and is located from Notre-Dame Cath ...
, where several TV channels and major media companies have their offices, including
France 24
France 24 ( in French) is a French state-owned international news television network based in Paris. Its channels broadcast in French, English, Arabic, and Spanish and are aimed at the overseas market.
Based in the Paris suburb of Issy-les-M ...
,
Eurosport
Eurosport is a group of pay television networks in Europe and parts of Asia. Owned by Warner Bros. Discovery through Warner Bros. Discovery Sports#Warner Bros. Discovery Sports Europe properties, its international sports unit, it operates two ...
,
Technicolor SA
Vantiva SA, formerly Technicolor SA, Thomson SARL, and Thomson Multimedia, is a French multinational corporation that provides creative services and technology products for the communication, media and entertainment industries. Vantiva's headq ...
, and Microsoft France.
The major French film studios are also located in the Paris Region. The
Gaumont Film Company
The Gaumont Film Company (, ), often shortened to Gaumont, is a French film studio headquartered in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France. Founded by the engineer-turned-inventor Lテゥon Gaumont (1864窶1946) in 1895, it is the oldest extant film company in ...
was the first motion picture company in the world, founded in 1896. Along with its television production company,
Gaumont International Television
Gaumont Television (sometimes written as ''GIT'' or ''GITV'') is the American television division of the French Gaumont. It was launched on September 12, 2011 as an independent studio based in Los Angeles, designed to produce drama and comedy te ...
, it earned revenue of 169 million euros in 2013. It is located in
Neuilly-sur-Seine
Neuilly-sur-Seine (; literally 'Neuilly on Seine'), also known simply as Neuilly, is a commune in the department of Hauts-de-Seine in France, just west of Paris. Immediately adjacent to the city, the area is composed of mostly select residentia ...
, just west of Paris. In 2008,
Disneynature
Disneynature is an independent film studio that specializes in the production of nature documentary films for The Walt Disney Studios. The production company was founded on April 21, 2008, and is headquartered in Paris, France.
The company's n ...
, a subsidiary of the United States-based
The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...
, was established to produce independent nature documentary films.
Pathテゥ
Pathテゥ or Pathテゥ Frティres (, styled as PATHテ!) is the name of various French people, French businesses that were founded and originally run by the Pathテゥ Brothers of France starting in 1896. In the early 1900s, Pathテゥ became the world's largest ...
was the second film studio established in the world, after Gaumont. Together with Pathテゥ, it owns a chain of multiplex movie theaters in France and throughout Europe.
Disneyland Paris
Disneyland Paris is an entertainment resort in Chessy, France, east of Paris. It encompasses two theme parks, resort hotels, Disney Nature Resorts, a shopping, dining and entertainment complex, and a golf course. Disneyland Park is the origin ...
is an amusement park and resort complex located in
Marne-la-Vallテゥe
Marne-la-Vallテゥe () is a new town located near Paris, France.
Disneyland Paris, Walt Disney Studios Park, Val d'Europe, Universitテゥ Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallテゥe, ESIEE Paris, and テ営ole des Ponts ParisTech are located in Marne-la-Vallテゥe.
Statu ...
, twenty miles east of Paris, which opened in 1992. It attracted 15 million visitors in 2014, making it one of the most visited tourist sites in the Paris region. It earned revenue of 1.309 billion dollars, but lost 27.5 million euro, due to the weak European economy.
Transportation
The
SNCF
The Sociテゥtテゥ nationale des chemins de fer franテァais (; abbreviated as SNCF ; French for "National society of French railroads") is France's national state-owned railway company. Founded in 1938, it operates the country's national rail traffi ...
(''Sociテゥtテゥ nationale des chemins de fer franテァais'', or "French National Railway Company") is
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
's national railway company which manages the rail traffic in France and the Principality of
Monaco
Monaco (; ), officially the Principality of Monaco (french: Principautテゥ de Monaco; Ligurian: ; oc, Principat de Mテウnegue), is a sovereign city-state and microstate on the French Riviera a few kilometres west of the Italian region of Lig ...
. It operates about 14,000 trains daily. It operates all of France's rail services, including the
TGV
The TGV (french: Train テ Grande Vitesse, "high-speed train"; previously french: TurboTrain テ Grande Vitesse, label=none) is France's intercity high-speed rail service, operated by SNCF. SNCF worked on a high-speed rail network from 1966 to 19 ...
, France's high-speed rail network. It owns 70 percent of the
Thalys
Thalys (French: ) is a French-Belgian high-speed train operator originally built around the LGV Nord high-speed line between Paris and Brussels. This track is shared with Eurostar trains that go from Paris, Brussels or Amsterdam to London via Li ...
high-speed train to Belgium and the Netherlands, and 55 percent of the
Eurostar
Eurostar is an international high-speed rail service connecting the United Kingdom with France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Most Eurostar trains travel through the Channel Tunnel between the United Kingdom and France, owned and operated sep ...
from Paris to London.
The SNCF is owned by the France state. In 2014 it had revenues of 36.138 million dollars, but this represented a drop of 15 percent from 2013. The SNCF has fallen from 214 in the Global 500 in 2010 to 253 in 2013, then down to 322 in 2014.
The headquarters of the SNCF was formerly in the 14th arrondissement of Paris, but in July 2013 it was moved to the suburb of Saint-Denis.
Air France
Air France (; formally ''Sociテゥtテゥ Air France, S.A.''), stylised as AIRFRANCE, is the flag carrier of France headquartered in Tremblay-en-France. It is a subsidiary of the Air France窶適LM Group and a founding member of the SkyTeam global air ...
is the national airline of France. In 2014 it had revenues of 33.12 billion dollars, representing a loss of 262 million dollars, due to high costs and stiff competition from low-cost airlines and the new airlines from the Persian Gulf. Air France dropped in rank in the Fortune Global 500 from 351 in 2013 to 365 in 2014.
The headquarters of Air France is located at Charles DeGaulle Airport, in the Commune of
Roissy-en-France
Roissy-en-France (, literally ''Roissy in France''; colloquially simply called Roissy) is a commune in the northeastern suburbs of Paris, France, in the Val-d'Oise department. It is located from the centre of Paris. In 2017, it had a population ...
;
A company called Airports of Paris manages all of the civilian airports in the Paris Region, including
Charles de Gaulle Airport
Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport (french: Aテゥroport de Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle, ), also known as Roissy Airport or simply Paris CDG, is the principal airport serving the French capital, Paris ( and its metropolitan area), and the largest intern ...
Orly Airport
Paris Orly Airport (french: Aテゥroport de Paris-Orly), commonly referred to as Orly , is one of two international airports serving the French capital, Paris, the other one being Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG). It is located partially in Orly an ...
. it also manages a number of overseas airports, particularly in the Middle East, including the airports of
Tripoli
Tripoli or Tripolis may refer to:
Cities and other geographic units Greece
*Tripoli, Greece, the capital of Arcadia, Greece
* Tripolis (region of Arcadia), a district in ancient Arcadia, Greece
* Tripolis (Larisaia), an ancient Greek city in ...
,
Zagreb
Zagreb ( , , , ) is the capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Croatia#List of cities and towns, largest city of Croatia. It is in the Northern Croatia, northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slop ...
,
Amman
Amman (; ar, リケル勺ル勺滞ァル, ' ; Ammonite language, Ammonite: 畝汝畝Å畝 畝条畝交畝 ''Rabat ハサAmト]'') is the capital and largest city of Jordan, and the country's economic, political, and cultural center. With a population of 4,061,150 a ...
,
Algiers
Algiers ( ; ar, リァルリャリイリァリヲリア, al-Jazト¬セir; ber, Dzayer, script=Latn; french: Alger, ) is the capital and largest city of Algeria. The city's population at the 2008 Census was 2,988,145Census 14 April 2008: Office National des Statistiques ...
and
Islamabad
Islamabad (; ur, , ) is the capital city of Pakistan. It is the country's ninth-most populous city, with a population of over 1.2 million people, and is federally administered by the Pakistani government as part of the Islamabad Capital T ...
. The company has 9,500 employees in the Paris Region. Its headquarters is located at 291 boulevard Raspail, in the 14th arrondissement.
Economic history
Lutece
The location of Lutece, the Gallo-Roman town that became Paris, made it prosperous; It was on the main river trade route, via the Seine and
Rhテエne
The Rhテエne ( , ; wae, Rotten ; frp, Rテエno ; oc, Rテイse ) is a major river in France and Switzerland, rising in the Alps and flowing west and south through Lake Geneva and southeastern France before discharging into the Mediterranean Sea. At Ar ...
rivers, between Britain and to the Roman colony of
Provence
Provence (, , , , ; oc, Provenテァa or ''Prouvティnテァo'' , ) is a geographical region and historical province of southeastern France, which extends from the left bank of the lower Rhテエne to the west to the Italian border to the east; it is bor ...
and the
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ea ...
; and it was also the easiest place to cross the Seine; the residents collected fees for crossing the bridge. The people of Lutece minted their own gold coins which were used for trade across Europe. Coins from the towns along the
Danube
The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , pa ...
and even from
Cテ。diz
Cテ。diz (, , ) is a city and port in southwestern Spain. It is the capital of the Province of Cテ。diz, one of eight that make up the autonomous community of Andalusia.
Cテ。diz, one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Western Europe, ...
in
Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de Espaテアa.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de Espaテアa (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, i ...
were found in the excavations of the ancient city. They also were known throughout Gaul for the quality of their jewelry and other ornaments made by the town's craftsmen.
Medieval Paris
Commerce was also a major source of the wealth and influence of Paris in the Middle Ages. In 1121, during the reign of Louis VI, the King accorded to the league of boatmen of Paris a fee of sixty centimes for each boatload of wine which arrived in the city during the harvest. In 1170, Louis VII extended the privileges of the river merchants even further; only the boatmen of Paris were allowed to conduct commerce on the river between the bridge of Mantes and the two bridges of Paris.
The large monasteries also played an important role in the growth of commerce in the Middle Ages by holding large fairs, which attracted merchants from as far away as Saxony and Italy. The Abbey of Saint Denis had been holding a large annual fair since the seventh century; the fair of Saint-Mathias dated to the 8th century; the Lenit Fair appeared in the 10th century, and the Fair of the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Pres began in the 12th century.
By the 15th century separate ports were established along the river for the delivery of wine, grain, plaster, paving stones, hay, fish, and charcoal. Wood for cooking fires and heating was unloaded at one port, while wood for construction arrived at another. The merchants engaged in each kind of commerce gathered around that port; in 1421, of the twenty-one wine merchants registered in Paris, eleven were located between the Pont Notre-Dame and the hotel Saint-Paul, the neighborhood where their port was located.
In the early Middle Ages, the principal market of Paris was located on the parvis, or square in front of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame. Other markets took place in the vicinity of the two bridges, the Grand Pont and the Petit Pont, while a smaller market called Palu or Palud, took place in the eastern neighborhood of the city. The most important market appeared in 1137 when Louis VI purchased a piece of land called Les Champeaux not far from the Place de Grティve to create a
grain market
The grain trade refers to the local and international trade in cereals and other food grains such as wheat, barley, maize, and rice. Grain is an important trade item because it is easily stored and transported with limited spoilage, unlike other ...
; over the course of the Middle Ages halls for meat, fish, fruits and vegetables and other food products were built around the grain market, and it became the main food market, and was known as
Les Halles
Les Halles (; 'The Halls') was Paris' central fresh food market. It last operated on January 12, 1973, after which it was "left to the demolition men who will knock down the last three of the eight iron-and-glass pavilions""Les Halles Dead at 200 ...
. It continued to be the main produce market until the late 20th century, when it was transferred to
Rungis
Rungis () is a commune in the southern suburbs of Paris, France, in the ''dテゥpartement'' of Val-de-Marne.
It is best known as the location of the large wholesale food market serving the Paris metropolitan area and beyond, the ''Marchテゥ d'Intテゥr ...
in the Paris suburbs.
After the merchants, the second important business community in Paris were the artisans and craftsmen, who produced and sold goods of all kinds. They were organized into guilds, or corporations, which had strict rules and regulations to protect their members against competition and unemployment. The oldest four corporations were the , who made cloth; the , who made and sold clothing, the , who sold food and spices, and the ''pelletiers'', who made fur garments. But there were many more specialized professions, ranging from shoemakers and jewelers to those who made armor and swords. The guilds strictly limited the number of apprentices in each trade, and the number of years of apprenticeship. Certain guilds tended to gather on the same streets, though this was not a strict rule. The ''drapers'' had their shops on the rue de la Vielle-Draperie on the Ile de la Citテゥ, while the ''Pelletiers'' were just north of them; the ''armorers'' north of the Chテ「telet fortress and east of rue saint-Denis.
Money-changers were active in Paris since at least 1141; they knew the exact values of all the different silver and gold coins in circulation in Europe. They had their establishments primarily on the Grand Pont, which became known as the pont aux Changeurs and then simply the Post au Change. Tax Records show that in 1423 the money-changers were among the wealthiest persons in the city; of the twenty persons with the highest incomes, ten were money-changers, Between 1412 and 1450, four Changers occupied the position of Provost of the Merchants. But by the end of the 15th century, the system of wealth had changed; the wealthiest Parisians were those who had bought land or positions in the royal administration and were close to the King. Some money-changers branched into a new trade, that of lending money for interest. Since this was officially forbidden by the Catholic Church, most in the profession were either Jews or Lombards from Italy. The Lombards, connected to a well-organizer banking system in Italy, specialized in loans to the wealthy and the nobility, Their activities were recorded in Paris archives from 1292 onwards; they made important loans to King
Philip IV Philip IV may refer to:
* Philip IV of Macedon (died 297 BC)
* Philip IV of France (1268窶1314), Avignon Papacy
* Philip IV of Burgundy or Philip I of Castile (1478窶1506)
* Philip IV, Count of Nassau-Weilburg (1542窶1602)
* Philip IV of Spain ...
At the beginning of the 17th century, the most important industry of the city was textiles; weaving and dyeing cloth, and making bonnets, belts, ribbons, and an assortment of other items of clothing. The dyeing industry was located in the Faubourg Saint-Marcel, along the River Bievre, which was quickly polluted by the workshops and dye vats along its banks. The largest workshops there, which made the fortunes of the families Gobelin, Canaye and Le Peultre, were dyeing six hundred thousand pieces of cloth a year in the mid-16th century, but, because of growing foreign competition, their output dropped to one hundred thousand pieces at the start of the 17th century, and the whole textile industry was struggling. Henry IV and Louis XIII observed that wealthy Parisians were spending huge sums to import silks, tapestries, glassware leather goods and carpets from Flanders, Spain, Italy and Turkey. They encouraged French businessmen to make the same luxury products in Paris.
With this royal encouragement, the financier Moisset launched an enterprise to make cloth woven with threads of gold, silver and silk. It failed, but was replaced by other successful ventures. The first tapestry workshop was opened, with royal assistance, in the Louvre, then at the
Savonnerie
The Savonnerie manufactory was the most prestigious European manufactory of knotted-pile carpets, enjoying its greatest period c. 1650窶1685; the cachet of its name is casually applied to many knotted-pile carpets made at other centers. The manuf ...
and at Chaillot. The Gobelins enterprise of dyers brought in two Flemish tapestry makers in 1601 and began to make its own tapestries in the Flemish style. Master craftsmen from Spain and Italy opened small enterprises to make high-quality leather goods. Workshops making fine furniture were opened by German craftsmen in the
faubourg Saint-Antoine
The Faubourg Saint-Antoine was one of the traditional suburbs of Paris, France.
It grew up to the east of the Bastille around the abbey of Saint-Antoine-des-Champs, and ran along the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine.
Location
The Faubourg Saint-Ant ...
. A royal glass factory was opened 1601 in Saint-Germain-des-Prテゥs to compete with Venetian glassmakers. A large factory was opened at Reuilly to produce and polish mirrors made by
Saint-Gobain
Compagnie de Saint-Gobain S.A. () is a French multinational corporation, founded in 1665 in Paris and headquartered on the outskirts of Paris, at La Dテゥfense and in Courbevoie. Originally a mirror manufacturer, it now also produces a variety of ...
.
Under Louis XIV and his minister of finance,
Jean-Baptiste Colbert
Jean-Baptiste Colbert (; 29 August 1619 窶 6 September 1683) was a French statesman who served as First Minister of State from 1661 until his death in 1683 under the rule of King Louis XIV. His lasting impact on the organization of the countr ...
, the royal manufacturies were expanded. The most skilled artisans in Europe were recruited and brought to Paris. In 1665 the enterprise of Hindret, located in the old chテ「teau de Madrid in the Bois de Boulogne, produced the first French silk stockings. The Gobelins workshops began to produce furniture for the royal residences as well as tapestries, while the
Savonnerie
The Savonnerie manufactory was the most prestigious European manufactory of knotted-pile carpets, enjoying its greatest period c. 1650窶1685; the cachet of its name is casually applied to many knotted-pile carpets made at other centers. The manuf ...
Manufactory produced magnificent carpets for the royal palaces. The quality of the carpets, tapestries, furniture, glass and other products was unmatched; the problem was that it was nearly all destined for a single client, the King, and his new residence at Versailles. The royal manufacturies were kept going by enormous subsidies from the royal treasury.
The most important market for luxury goods was located on the テ四e-de-la-Citテゥ, in the spacious gallery of the old royal palace, where it had been since at least the fourteenth century. The palace was no longer occupied by the King, and had become the administrative headquarters of the Kingdom, occupied by the courts, the treasury, and other government offices. The small shops in the gallery sold a wide variety of expensive gowns, cloaks, perfumes, hats, bonnets, children's wear, gloves, and other items of clothing. Books were another luxury items sold there; they were hand-printed, expensively bound, and rare.
Clocks and watches were another important luxury good made in Paris shops. Access to the profession was strictly controlled; at the beginning of the 17th century, the guild of ''horlogers'' had twenty-five members. Each horloger was allowed to have no more than one apprentice, and apprenticeship lasted six years. Nearly all the clock and watchmakers were Protestants; when Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685, most of the ''horlogers'' refused to renounce their faith and emigrated to Geneva, England and Holland, and France no longer dominated the industry.
During most of the 18th century, the Parisian economy was based on thousands of small workshops, where skilled artisans produced products. The workshops were clustered in particular neighborhoods; furniture makers in the faubourg Saint-Antoine; cutlery and small metal-work in neighborhood called the ''Quinze Vingts'' near the
Bastille
The Bastille (, ) was a fortress in Paris, known formally as the Bastille Saint-Antoine. It played an important role in the internal conflicts of France and for most of its history was used as a state prison by the kings of France. It was sto ...
. There were a few large enterprises, including the dye factory of Gobelins, next to the Biティvre river, which made scarlet dye for the Gobelin royal tapestry workshop, the oldest factory in the city, founded at the end of the 17th century; the royal manufactory of Sティvres, making porcelain; the royal mirror factory in the faubourg Saint-Antoine, which employed a thousand workers; and the factory of
Rテゥveillon
A ''rテゥveillon'' () is a long dinner held in the evening preceding Christmas Day and New Year's Eve. Its name descends from the word ''rテゥveil'' (meaning "waking"), because participation involves staying awake until morning, as the meal finishes ...
on ''rue de Montreuil'', which made painted wallpaper.
In the second half of the 18th century, new scientific discoveries and new technologies changed the scale of Paris industry. Between 1778 and 1782, large steam engines were installed at
Chaillot
The 16th arrondissement of Paris (''XVIe arrondissement'') is one of the 20 arrondissements of the capital city of France. In spoken French, this arrondissement is referred to as ''seiziティme''.
The arrondissement includes part of the Arc de Tr ...
and ''Gros-Caillou'' to pump drinking water from the Seine. Major changes took place between 1770 and 1790 in chemical manufacturing, due to the pioneering work of French chemists. The first chemical factories were built between 1770 and 1779, based on the work of
Lavoisier
Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier ( , ; ; 26 August 17438 May 1794), CNRS (
saltpeter
Potassium nitrate is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . This alkali metal nitrate salt is also known as Indian saltpetre (large deposits of which were historically mined in India). It is an ionic salt of potassium ions K+ and nitrat ...
, the main ingredient of black powder, in large factories around Paris. The French chemist
Berthollet
Claude Louis Berthollet (, 9 December 1748 窶 6 November 1822) was a Savoyard-French chemist who became vice president of the French Senate in 1804. He is known for his scientific contributions to theory of chemical equilibria via the mech ...
discovered
chlorine
Chlorine is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Cl and atomic number 17. The second-lightest of the halogens, it appears between fluorine and bromine in the periodic table and its properties are mostly intermediate betwee ...
in 1785, creating a new industry for the manufacture of
potassium chloride
Potassium chloride (KCl, or potassium salt) is a metal halide salt composed of potassium and chlorine. It is odorless and has a white or colorless vitreous crystal appearance. The solid dissolves readily in water, and its solutions have a salt ...
.
New discoveries about acids, used extensively in fabric dyeing and metallurgy, led to the creation of new industries in Paris; the first French plant to manufacture
sulfuric acid
Sulfuric acid (American spelling and the preferred IUPAC name) or sulphuric acid ( Commonwealth spelling), known in antiquity as oil of vitriol, is a mineral acid composed of the elements sulfur, oxygen and hydrogen, with the molecular formu ...
was opened in 1779. It was owned by the brother of king
Louis XVI
Louis XVI (''Louis-Auguste''; ; 23 August 175421 January 1793) was the last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. He was referred to as ''Citizen Louis Capet'' during the four months just before he was ...
, the
Count of Artois
The count of Artois (French: Comtes d'Artois, Dutch: Graven van Artesiテォ) was the ruler over the County of Artois from the 9th century until the abolition of the countship by the French revolutionaries in 1790.
House of Artois
*Odalric (c. 850s) ...
; the King himself promoted it, eager that France complete successfully with England in industrial manufacturing. The chemical factory at ''Javel'' branched out to make other chemical products, including
chlorine
Chlorine is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Cl and atomic number 17. The second-lightest of the halogens, it appears between fluorine and bromine in the periodic table and its properties are mostly intermediate betwee ...
and
hydrogen
Hydrogen is the chemical element with the symbol H and atomic number 1. Hydrogen is the lightest element. At standard conditions hydrogen is a gas of diatomic molecules having the formula . It is colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, an ...
gas; the hydrogen made possible the first manned balloon flights by the
Montgolfier Brothers
The Montgolfier brothers 窶 Joseph-Michel Montgolfier (; 26 August 1740 窶 26 June 1810) and Jacques-テ液ienne Montgolfier (; 6 January 1745 窶 2 August 1799) 窶 were aviation pioneers, balloonists and paper manufacturers from the commune A ...
shortly before the Revolution.
In the domain of finance and banking, Paris was far behind other European capitals, and even other French cities. The first venture of Paris into modern finance was launched by the Scottish economist
John Law
John Law may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* John Law (artist) (born 1958), American artist
* John Law (comics), comic-book character created by Will Eisner
* John Law (film director), Hong Kong film director
* John Law (musician) (born 1961) ...
, who, encouraged by the Regent, in 1716 started a private bank and issued paper money. Law invested heavily in the
Mississippi Company
The Mississippi Company (french: Compagnie du Mississippi; founded 1684, named the Company of the West from 1717, and the Company of the Indies from 1719) was a corporation holding a business monopoly in French colonies in North America and th ...
, causing wild speculation, with shares rising to sixty times their original value. The bubble burst in 1720, and Law closed the bank and fled the country, ruining many Parisian investors. Thereafter, Parisians were suspicious of banks and bankers. The ''Bourse'', or Paris stock market, did not open until 24 September 1724 on ''rue Vivienne'', in the former ''hテエtel de Nevers'', long after stock markets had existed in Lyon, Marseille, Bordeaux, Toulouse and other cities. The ''
Banque de France
The Bank of France ( French: ''Banque de France''), headquartered in Paris, is the central bank of France. Founded in 1800, it began as a private institution for managing state debts and issuing notes. It is responsible for the accounts of the F ...
'' was not founded until 1800, long after the
Bank of Amsterdam
The Bank of Amsterdam ( nl, Amsterdamsche Wisselbank, lit=Exchange Bank of Amsterdam) was an early bank, vouched for by the city of Amsterdam, and established in 1609. It was the first public bank to offer accounts not directly convertible to co ...
(1609), and the
Bank of England
The Bank of England is the central bank of the United Kingdom and the model on which most modern central banks have been based. Established in 1694 to act as the English Government's banker, and still one of the bankers for the Government of ...
(1694).
Fashion and
haute couture
''Haute couture'' (; ; French for 'high sewing', 'high dressmaking') is the creation of exclusive custom-fitted high-end fashion design that is constructed by hand from start-to-finish. Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, Paris became th ...
was a flourishing business in the mid and late 18th century, as the aristocrats copied the styles of clothing worn by the Queen and her court, and the wives of Paris bankers and wealthy merchants copied the styles worn by the aristocrats. The fashion industry was formally born in 1776, when the guild of fashion merchants (''marchands de mode''), along with plume merchants and florists, was officially separated from the ''mercers'', those who sold ordinary clothing. By 1779 two hundred different models of hat were being sold in Paris, at prices ranging from ten to one hundred pounds, along with every other possible fashion item.
The Paris perfume industry also emerged in its modern form in the second part the 18th century, after the guild of perfumers separated from the guild of glove-makers. The perfumes were usually made in
Grasse
Grasse (; Provenテァal dialect, Provenテァal oc, Grassa in classical norm or in Mistralian norm ; traditional it, Grassa) is the only Subprefectures in France, subprefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes Departments of France, department in the Provence- ...
, in Provence, but the shops that sold them were opened in Paris. In 1798 the perfumer of the Queen, Pierre-Franテァois Lubin, opened a perfume shop at 53 rue Helvテゥtius (now rue Sainte-Anne), with the name ''au Bouquet de Roses.'' Other perfumers opened similar shops catering to wealthy Parisians and visitors.
19th century
The metric system was introduced in 1803, as was the
franc
The franc is any of various units of currency. One franc is typically divided into 100 centimes. The name is said to derive from the Latin inscription ''francorum rex'' (Style of the French sovereign, King of the Franks) used on early France, ...
, worth one hundred
centime
Centime (from la, centesimus) is French for " cent", and is used in English as the name of the fraction currency in several Francophone countries (including Switzerland, Algeria, Belgium, Morocco and France).
In France, the usage of ''centim ...
s, and the '' sou'', worth five centimes. The gold Napoleon coin was worth either 20 or 40 francs, and the government also issued silver coins worth five, two and one franc. The government did not have the resources to collect and remake all the coins of the former regimes, so the gold Louis, with an image of the King, worth 24 pounds, and the
テゥcu
The term ''テゥcu'' () or crown may refer to one of several French coins. The first ''テゥcu'' was a gold coin (the ''テゥcu d'or'') minted during the reign of Louis IX of France, in 1266. ''テ営u'' (from Latin ''scutum'') means shield, and the coin ...
, a silver count worth three of six pounds, were also legal currency. The coins of all the states within the Empire were also in circulation, including those of the German states, northern and central Italy, the Netherlands, and the Austrian Netherlands (now Belgium).
During the Restoration, Paris became the cradle of the
industrial revolution
The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820窶1840. This transition included going f ...
in France. The textile industry had already been installed in the faubourg Saint-Antoine by the firm of Richard and Lenoir, and by Albert in the Faubourg Saint-Denis. In 1812,
Benjamin Delessert
Jules Paul Benjamin Delessert (14 February 1773 窶 1 March 1847) was a French banker and natural history, naturalist. He was an honorary member of the Acadテゥmie des Sciences and many species were named from his natural history collections.
Biog ...
had built the first refinery of sugar beets at
Passy
Passy () is an area of Paris, France, located in the 16th arrondissement, on the Right Bank. It is home to many of the city's wealthiest residents.
Passy was a commune on the outskirts of Paris. In 1658, hot springs were discovered around whic ...
, which became one of the largest industrial enterprises in the Paris region. In 1818, he joined forces with
Baron Jean-Conrad Hottinguer
Baron Jean-Conrad Hottinguer (15 February 1764, Zurich 窶 12 September 1841, Castle Piple, Boissy-Saint-Lテゥger) was a Swiss-born French banker who later became a Baron of the French Empire.
Biography
Career
In 1784, Hottinguer left the city ...
to create the Caisse d'Epargne et de Prテゥvoyance de Paris, France's first savings bank. French scientists made important advances in new technologies, including the manufacture of rubber, aluminum, and gilded products, which were turned into industries. Even before the Revolution, in 1779 the Count of Artois, the brother of the King, had built the first chemical plant on the plain of Javel, next to the Seine, making sulfuric acid, potash, and chlorine, called "Eau de Javel." The plant also made hydrogen gas, used in the first manned balloon flights, and varnish, used to seal the fabric of balloons. During the Restoration, inspired by the work of the chemist
Jean-Antoine Chaptal
Jean-Antoine Chaptal, comte de Chanteloup (5 June 1756 窶 30 July 1832) was a French chemist, physician, agronomist, industrialist, statesman, educator and philanthropist. His multifaceted career unfolded during one of the most brilliant periods ...
and other scientists, new factories were built along the left bank of the Seine, making a wide variety of new chemical products, but also heavily polluting the river.
The commerce in luxury goods had suffered greatly during the Revolution, as the chief buyers, the aristocracy, had been driven into exile. Their return during the Restoration and especially the rapid growth of the number of wealthy Parisians revived the business in jewelry, furniture, fine clothing, watches and other luxury products. The finest shops of Paris were lined up along the Rue Saint-Honorテゥ.
The
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820窶1840. This transition included going f ...
steadily changed the economy and the appearance of Paris, as new factories were built along the Seine and in the outer neighborhoods of the city. The textile industry was in decline, but the chemical industry was expanding around the edges of the city, at Javel,
Grenelle
Grenelle () is a neighbourhood in southwestern Paris, France. It is a part of the 15th arrondissement of the city.
There is currently a Boulevard de Grenelle which runs along the North delimitation of the ''quartier'', and a Rue de Grenelle, ...
,
Passy
Passy () is an area of Paris, France, located in the 16th arrondissement, on the Right Bank. It is home to many of the city's wealthiest residents.
Passy was a commune on the outskirts of Paris. In 1658, hot springs were discovered around whic ...
Pantin
Pantin () is a commune in the northeastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris. In 2019 its population was estimated to be 59,846. Pantin is located on the edge of the city of Paris and is mainly formed by a plain ...
. It was joined by mills and factories making steel, machines and tools, especially for the new railroad industry. Paris ranked third in France in metallurgy, after Saint-テ液ienne and the Nord department. Between 1830 and 1847, twenty percent of all the steam engines produced in France were made in Paris. Many of these were produced at the locomotive factory built by
Jean-Franテァois Cail
Jean-Franテァois Cail (8 February 1804 窶 22 May 1871) was a French entrepreneur and industrialist who was a key figure in French industrialization.
Life
Childhood
Jean-Franテァois Cail was born the third of eight children on 8 February 1804 ...
in 1844, first at
Chaillot
The 16th arrondissement of Paris (''XVIe arrondissement'') is one of the 20 arrondissements of the capital city of France. In spoken French, this arrondissement is referred to as ''seiziティme''.
The arrondissement includes part of the Arc de Tr ...
, then at Grenelle, which became one of the largest enterprises in Paris.
One example of the new factories in Paris was the cigarette and cigar factory of Philippon, between rue de l'Universitテゥ and the quai d'Orsay. Napoleon's soldiers had brought the habit of smoking from Spain, and it had spread among all classes of Parisians. The government had a monopoly on the manufacture of tobacco products, and the government-owned factory opened in 1812. It employed 1,200 workers, a large number of them women, and also included a school and laboratory, run by the ''テ営ole Polytechnique'', to develop new methods of tobacco production.
Despite the surge of industrialization, most Parisian workers were employed in small workshops and enterprises. In 1847, there were 350,000 workers in Paris employed in 65,000 businesses. Only seven thousand businesses employed more than ten workers. For example, in 1848 there were 377 small workshops in Paris making and selling umbrellas, employing a total of 1,442 workers.
With the surge of industrialization, the importance of banking and finance in the Paris economy also grew. As
Stendhal
Marie-Henri Beyle (; 23 January 1783 窶 23 March 1842), better known by his pen name Stendhal (, ; ), was a 19th-century French writer. Best known for the novels ''Le Rouge et le Noir'' (''The Red and the Black'', 1830) and ''La Chartreuse de P ...
wrote at the time, the bankers were the new aristocracy of Paris. In 1837,
Jacques Laffitte
Jacques Laffitte (24 October 1767 窶 26 May 1844) was a leading French banker, governor of the Bank of France (1814窶1820) and liberal member of the Chamber of Deputies during the Bourbon Restoration and July Monarchy. He was an important fi ...
founded the first business bank in Paris, the ''Caisse gテゥnテゥrale du commerce et de l'industrie''. In 1842, Hippolyte Ganneron founded a rival commercial bank, the ''Comptoir gテゥnテゥral du commerce''. The banks provided the funding for the most important economic event of the July Monarchy, the arrival of the railroads. The brothers テ盈ile and Issac Pテゥreire, the grandchildren of an immigrant from
Portugal
Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, Repテコblica Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...
, founded the first railway line to Paris.
James Mayer de Rothschild
James Mayer de Rothschild, Baron de Rothschild (born Jakob Mayer Rothschild; 15 May 1792 窶 15 November 1868) was a German- French banker and the founder of the French branch of the Rothschild family.
Early life
James de Rothschild was born ...
, the chief rival of the Pテゥreire brothers, was the most famous banker of the July Monarchy. He gave loans to the government of Louis-Philippe and played a key role in the construction of the French mining industry and railroad network.
The reign of Louis-Philippe became known as "the reign of the boutique". During the July Monarchy, Paris continued to be the marketplace of luxury goods for wealthiest of Europe, and the leader in fashion. The perfumer Pierre-Franテァois-Pascal Guerlain had opened his first shop on the ''
rue de Rivoli
Rue de Rivoli (; English: "Rivoli Street") is a street in central Paris, France. It is a commercial street whose shops include leading fashionable brands. It bears the name of Napoleon's early victory against the Austrian army, at the Battle of Ri ...
'' in 1828. In 1840, he opened a larger shop at 145 ''
rue de la Paix
The rue de la Paix (English: Peace Street) () is a fashionable shopping street in the center of Paris. Located in the 2nd arrondissement of Paris, running north from Place Vendテエme and ending at the Opテゥra Garnier, it is best known for its jewe ...
'', which was also the first street in Paris to be lit with gaslight. The porcelain factory at
Sティvres
Sティvres (, ) is a commune in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris, in the Hauts-de-Seine department, テ四e-de-France region. The commune, which had a population of 23,251 as of 2018, is known for i ...
, which had long made table settings for the royal courts of Europe, began to make them for the bankers and industrialists of Paris.
The ''
Passage des Panoramas
The Passage des Panoramas is the oldest of the covered passages of Paris, France located in the 2nd arrondissement between the Montmartre boulevard to the North and Saint-Marc street to the south. It is one of the earliest venues of the Parisian ...
'' and other covered shopping galleries were ancestors of the modern shopping center. Another new kind of store was the ''Magasin de Nouveautテゥs'', or novelty store. The ''Grand Colbert'' in the ''Galerie Colbert'' on ''rue Vivienne'' was decorated and organized like an oriental bazaar; it had large plate glass windows and window displays, fixed prices and price tags, and sold a wide variety of products for women, from cashmere and lace to hosiery and hats. It was an ancestor to the modern department store, which first opened in Paris in the 1850s. Other novel marketing techniques were introduced in Paris at this time: the illuminated sign, and advertising goods in newspapers. The arrival of the railroad made it possible for people from the provinces to come to Paris simply to shop.
The Second Empire saw a revolution in retail commerce, as the Paris middle class and consumer demand grew rapidly. The revolution was fuelled in large part by Paris fashions, especially the crinoline, which demanded enormous quantities of silk, satin, velour, cashmere, percale, mohair, ribbons, lace and other fabrics and decorations. Prior to the Second Empire, clothing and luxury shops were small and catered to a very small clientele; their windows were covered with shutters or curtains. Any who entered had to explain his presence to the clerks, and prices were never posted; customers had to ask.
Under
Napoleon III
Napoleon III (Charles Louis Napolテゥon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was the first President of France (as Louis-Napolテゥon Bonaparte) from 1848 to 1852 and the last monarch of France as Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870. A nephew ...
, The new Haussmann boulevards created space for new stores, and it was easier for customers to cross the city to shop. In a short time, the commerce in novelties, fabrics and clothing began to be concentrated in a few very large department stores.
Bon Marchテゥ
''Bon'', also spelled Bテカn () and also known as Yungdrung Bon (, "eternal Bon"), is a Tibetan culture, Tibetan religious tradition with many similarities to Tibetan Buddhism and also many unique features.Samuel 2012, pp. 220-221. Bon initiall ...
, was opened in 1852 by
Aristide Boucicaut
Aristide Boucicaut (; July 14, 1810 窶 December 26, 1877) was a French entrepreneur who created ''Le Bon Marchテゥ'', the first modern department store.
Background
Born in Bellテェme, in the Orne department on 14 July 1810, Boucicaut was the s ...
, the former chief of the ''Petit Thomas'' variety store, in a modest building, and expanded rapidly, its income going from 450,000 francs a year to 20 million. Boucicaut commissioned a new building with a glass and iron framework designed in part by
Gustave Eiffel
Alexandre Gustave Eiffel (born Bonickhausen dit Eiffel; ; ; 15 December 1832 窶 27 December 1923) was a French civil engineer. A graduate of テ営ole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures, he made his name with various bridges for the French railway ...
, which opened in 1869, and became the model for the modern department store. The ''Grand Magasin du Louvre'' opened in 1855, inside the vast luxury hotel built by the Pereire Brothers next to the Louvre and the Place Royale. It was the first department store that concentrated on luxury goods, and tried to both provide bargains and be snobbish. Other department stores quickly appeared:
Printemps
Printemps (; meaning "spring (season), springtime" in French language, French) is a French department store chain (french: grand magasin, links=no, literally "big store"). The Printemps stores focus on beauty, lifestyle, fashion, accessories ...
in 1865, the Grand Bazaar de l'Hテエtel de Ville (BHV) in 1869, and
La Samaritaine
La Samaritaine (French pronunciation: a samaハ(tノ嬾 is a large department store in Paris, France, located in the first arrondissement. The nearest mテゥtro station is Pont-Neuf, directly in front at the quai du Louvre and the rue de la Monnaie ...
in 1870. They were soon imitated around the world.
The new stores pioneered new methods of marketing, from holding annual sales to giving bouquets of violets to customers or boxes of chocolates to those who spent more than 25 francs. They offered a wide variety of products and prices; Bon Marchテゥ offered fifty-four kinds of crinolines, and thirty different kinds of silk. The Grand Magasin du Louvre sold shawls ranging in price from 30 francs to 600 francs.
The economy of Paris suffered an economic crisis in the early 1870s, followed by a long, slow recovery; then a period of rapid growth beginning in 1895 until the First World War. Between 1872 and 1895, in the capital, 139 large enterprises closed their doors, particularly textile and furniture factories, those in the metallurgy sector, and printing houses, four industries which for sixty years had been the major employers in the city. Most of these enterprises had employed, each, between 100 and 200 workers. Half of the large enterprises on the center of the city's right bank moved out, in part because of the high cost of real estate, and also to get better access to transportation on the river and railroads. Several moved to less-expensive areas at the edges of the city, around Monparnasse and La Salpテェtriテゥre, while others went to the
18th arrondissement
The 18th arrondissement of Paris (''XVIIIe arrondissement'') is one of the 20 Arrondissements of Paris, arrondissements of Paris, the capital city of France. In spoken French, this arrondissement is referred to as ''dix-huitiティme''.
The arrondis ...
Canal Saint-Denis
The Canal Saint-Denis is a canal in Paris that is in length. The canal connects the Canal de l'Ourcq, at a point north-northwest of the Bassin de la Villette in the 19th arrondissement, with the suburban municipalities of Saint-Denis and Auber ...
, to be closer to the river ports and the new railroad freight yards, to Picpus and
Charonne
The Charonne quarter is an area of the 20th arrondissement of Paris named after a former municipality in the area, which was merged into the city of Paris in 1860 by Napoleon III and split between Charonne quarter (south part), the Pティre-Lachais ...
in the southeast, or near
Grenelle
Grenelle () is a neighbourhood in southwestern Paris, France. It is a part of the 15th arrondissement of the city.
There is currently a Boulevard de Grenelle which runs along the North delimitation of the ''quartier'', and a Rue de Grenelle, ...
and Javel in the southwest. The total number of enterprises in Paris dropped from 76,000 in 1872 to 60,000 in 1896, while in the suburbs their number grew from 11,000 to 13,000. In the heart of Paris, many workers were still employed in traditional industries such as textiles (18,000 workers), garment production (45,000 workers), and in the new industries which required highly skilled workers, such as mechanical and electrical engineering, and automobile manufacturing.
Three major new French industries were born in and around Paris at almost the same time, taking advantage of the abundance of skilled engineers and technicians, and money from Paris banks. They produced the first French automobiles, aircraft, and motion pictures. In 1898, Louis Renault and his brother Marcel built their first automobile, and founded a new company to produce them. They established their first factory at
Boulogne-Billancourt
Boulogne-Billancourt (; often colloquially called simply Boulogne, until 1924 Boulogne-sur-Seine, ) is a wealthy and prestigious Communes of France, commune in the Parisian area, located from its Kilometre zero, centre. It is a Subprefectures in ...
, just outside the city, and made the first French truck in 1906 in 1908, they built 3,595 cars, making them the largest car manufacturer in France. They received an important contract to make taxicabs for the largest Paris taxi company. When the first World War began in 1914, the Renault taxis of Paris were mobilized to carry French soldiers to the front at the
First Battle of the Marne
The First Battle of the Marne was a battle of the First World War fought from 5 to 12 September 1914. It was fought in a collection of skirmishes around the Marne River Valley. It resulted in an Entente victory against the German armies in the ...
.
The French aviation pioneer
Louis Blテゥriot
Louis Charles Joseph Blテゥriot ( , also , ; 1 July 1872 窶 1 August 1936) was a French aviator, inventor, and engineer. He developed the first practical headlamp for cars and established a profitable business manufacturing them, using much of th ...
also established a company, Blテゥriot Aテゥronautique, on ''boulevard Victor-Hugo'' in
Neuilly
Neuilly (, ) is a common place name in France, deriving from the male given name
A given name (also known as a forename or first name) is the part of a personal name quoted in that identifies a person, potentially with a middle name as well ...
, where he manufactured the first French airplanes. On 25 July 1909, he became the first man to fly across the
English Channel
The English Channel, "The Sleeve"; nrf, la Maunche, "The Sleeve" (Cotentinais) or ( Jティrriais), (Guernテゥsiais), "The Channel"; br, Mor Breizh, "Sea of Brittany"; cy, Mテエr Udd, "Lord's Sea"; kw, Mor Bretannek, "British Sea"; nl, Het Kana ...
Versailles
The Palace of Versailles ( ; french: Chテ「teau de Versailles ) is a former royal residence built by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 1995 has been managed, u ...
, where he established a private airport and a flying school. In 1910, he built the ''Aテゥrobus'', one of the first passenger aircraft, which could carry seven persons, the most of any aircraft of the time.
The
Lumiティre Brothers
Lumiティre is French for 'light'.
Lumiere, Lumiティre or Lumieres may refer to:
*Lumiティres, the philosophical movement in the Age of Enlightenment People
*Auguste and Louis Lumiティre, French pioneers in film-making Film and TV
* Institut Lumiティre, a ...
Salon Indien du Grand Cafテゥ
Le Salon Indien du Grand Cafテゥ was a room in the basement of the Grand Cafテゥ, on the Boulevard des Capucines near the Place de l'Opテゥra in the center of Paris. It is notable for being the place that hosted the first commercial public film screenin ...
'' of the ''Hテエtel Scribe'', ''boulevard des Capucines'', on 28 December 1895. A young French entrepreneur,
Georges Mテゥliティs
Marie-Georges-Jean Mテゥliティs (; ; 8 December 1861 窶 21 January 1938) was a French illusionist, actor, and film director. He led many technical and narrative developments in the earliest days of cinema.
Mテゥliティs was well known for the use of ...
, attended the first showing, and asked the Lumiティre brothers for a license to make films. The Lumiティre Brothers politely declined, telling him that the cinema was for scientific purposes, and had no commercial value. Mテゥliティs persisted, and established his own small studio in 1897 in Montreuil, just east of Paris. He became a producer, director, scenarist, set designer and actor, and made hundreds of short films, including the first science-fiction film,
A Trip to the Moon
''A Trip to the Moon'' (french: Le Voyage dans la Lune) is a 1902 French adventure short film directed by Georges Mテゥliティs. Inspired by a wide variety of sources, including Jules Verne's 1865 novel ''From the Earth to the Moon'' and its 1870 s ...
(''Le Voyage dans la Lune''), in 1902. Another French cinema pioneer and producer
Charles Pathテゥ
Charles Morand Pathテゥ (; 26 December 1863 – 25 December 1957) was a pioneer of the French film and recording industries. As the founder of Pathテゥ Frティres, its roots lie in 1896 Paris, France, when Pathテゥ and his brothers pioneered the deve ...
, also built a studio in Montreuil, then moved to ''rue des Vignerons'' in
Vincennes
Vincennes (, ) is a commune in the Val-de-Marne department in the eastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris. It is next to but does not include the Chテ「teau de Vincennes and Bois de Vincennes, which are attached ...
, east of Paris. His chief rival in the early French film industry,
Lテゥon Gaumont
Lテゥon Ernest Gaumont (; 10 May 1864 窶 10 August 1946) was a French inventor, engineer, and industrialist who was a pioneer of the motion picture industry. He founded the world窶冱 first and oldest film studio Gaumont Film Company, and worked in ...
, opened his first studio at about the same time at ''rue des Alouettes'' in the 19th arrondissement, near the Buttes-Chaumont.
20th century
The coal mines and major industrial cities of the north were behind German lines, forcing the government to reorganize the industry of Paris to provide the enormous quantities of weapons and ammunition that the army needed. The munitions factories of Paris had to produce one hundred thousand 75-millimeter artillery shells every day, in addition to other munitions, cannon, rifles, trucks, ambulances, and aircraft, as well as building the machine tools and factory equipment needed to expand production. The effort was led by Albert Thomas, a socialist politician who became the Secretary of State for Artillery.. In 1915 more than a thousand Paris enterprises were working in the sector of National Defense.
Most of the defense factories were located in the outer neighborhoods of the city, particularly the 13th, 14th, 15th and 18th arrondissements. A large Citroen factory was built at Javel, and the
Renault
Groupe Renault ( , , , also known as the Renault Group in English; legally Renault S.A.) is a French multinational automobile manufacturer established in 1899. The company produces a range of cars and vans, and in the past has manufactured ...
factory at
Boulogne-Billancourt
Boulogne-Billancourt (; often colloquially called simply Boulogne, until 1924 Boulogne-sur-Seine, ) is a wealthy and prestigious Communes of France, commune in the Parisian area, located from its Kilometre zero, centre. It is a Subprefectures in ...
was converted from making automobiles to making a revolutionary new weapon, the tank. The aviation firm
Blテゥriot Aテゥronautique
Blテゥriot Aテゥronautique was a French aircraft manufacturer founded by Louis Blテゥriot. It also made a few motorcycles between 1921 and 1922 and cyclecars during the 1920s.
Background
Louis Blテゥriot was an engineer who had developed the first p ...
built an enormous aircraft factory, covering 28,000 square meters, at
Suresnes
Suresnes () is a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, テ四e-de-France. Located in Hauts-de-Seine, from the centre of Paris, it had a population of 49,145 as of 2016. The nearest communes are Nanterre, Puteaux, Rueil-Malmaison, Saint-Cloud an ...
in 1917. The traditional small workshops of French industry were re-organized into huge assembly lines following the model of factory of
Henry Ford
Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 窶 April 7, 1947) was an American industrialist, business magnate, founder of the Ford Motor Company, and chief developer of the assembly line technique of mass production. By creating the first automobile that mi ...
in the United States and the productivity studies of Frederick Taylor on
scientific management
Scientific management is a theory of management that analyzes and synthesizes workflows. Its main objective is improving economic efficiency, especially labor productivity. It was one of the earliest attempts to apply science to the engineer ...
.
As factory workers were drafted and sent to the front, their places were taken by women as well as 183,000 colonials from Africa and Indo-China who were closely watched by the government. On 27 August 1915, 1,700 Chinese workers arrived at the Gare de Lyon to take positions in the Renault tank factory and other defense works.
The work in the defense factories was intense and dangerous, as inexperienced workers handled dangerous chemicals and high explosives. On 20 October 1915, a workshop making hand grenades at 173 rue de Tolbiac exploded, killing about fifty workers and injuring a hundred. In April 1918, a new factory in Vincennes making shells and mustard gas exploded, poisoning three hundred ten workers.
As a result of the war, the French government was deeply in debt; the debt had multiplied six times from what it was before the War. Inflation was rampant; the amount of money in circulation had increased by five times during the War. The low value of the Franc against the dollar made the city attractive for foreign visitors such as Ernest Hemingway, who found prices for housing and food affordable, but it was difficult for the Parisians. Energy was in short supply; before leaving their front lines, the Germans had flooded the coal mines of northern France; coal production was not fully restored for five years. A large part of the government budget went to repaying the war debts, and another large part went to paying the pensions of widows, orphans, and wounded soldiers.
The weak franc was helpful for the major enterprises of Paris, which converted to making new products which had been developed during the war; automobiles, electric generators and motors, and chemical products. Due to low French costs, exports jumped by forty-two percent between 1923 and 1927.
A good example of a successful new Paris enterprise was the automobile company founded in 1919 by
Andrテゥ Citroテォn
Andrテゥ-Gustave Citroテォn (; 5 February 1878 窶 3 July 1935) was a French industrialist and the founder of French automaker Citroテォn. He is remembered chiefly for the make of car named after him, but also for his application of double helical ...
(1878-1935). He was an industrial engineer who developed assembly lines to produce armaments during the First World War. In 1919 he put these technologies to work to mass-produce automobiles on a site next to Seine; he created the first automobile assembly line outside the United States. By 1927 Citroテォn was the leader car manufacturer in Europe, and fourth in the world. In addition to his engineering talents, he was also a skilled publicist. He organized a series of highly publicized automobile expeditions to remote parts of Africa, Asia and Australia, and, from 1925 until 1934, had a large illuminated Citroテォn sign on the side of the Eiffel Tower. The site of Citroテォn's old factory is now the
Parc Andrテゥ Citroテォn
Parc Andrテゥ Citroテォn is a public park located on the left bank of the river Seine in the 15th arrondissement of Paris.
Built on the site of a former Citroテォn automobile manufacturing plant, the park is named after company founder Andrテゥ Citroテォn ...
.
During the early 20th century, the inner eleven arrondissements of Paris (with the exception of the 7th) became the centers of commerce; their populations were a smaller and smaller share of the total population of the city. About a quarter of Paris workers were engaged in commerce, wholesale and retail. The motors of the city economy were the great department stores, founded in the Belle テ英oque;
Bon Marchテゥ
''Bon'', also spelled Bテカn () and also known as Yungdrung Bon (, "eternal Bon"), is a Tibetan culture, Tibetan religious tradition with many similarities to Tibetan Buddhism and also many unique features.Samuel 2012, pp. 220-221. Bon initiall ...
,
Galeries Lafayette
The Galeries Lafayette () is an upmarket French department store chain, the biggest in Europe. Its flagship store is on Boulevard Haussmann in the 9th arrondissement of Paris but it now operates in a number of other locations in France and othe ...
Printemps
Printemps (; meaning "spring (season), springtime" in French language, French) is a French department store chain (french: grand magasin, links=no, literally "big store"). The Printemps stores focus on beauty, lifestyle, fashion, accessories ...
,
La Samaritaine
La Samaritaine (French pronunciation: a samaハ(tノ嬾 is a large department store in Paris, France, located in the first arrondissement. The nearest mテゥtro station is Pont-Neuf, directly in front at the quai du Louvre and the rue de la Monnaie ...
, and several others, grouped in the center. They employed tens of thousands of workers, many of them women, and attracted customers from around the world.
The 1920s were a glorious period for Paris high fashion. The 1925 Exposition of Decorative arts featured the work of seventy-two Paris fashion designers; the leading figures included
Paul Poiret
Paul Poiret (20 April 1879 窶 30 April 1944, Paris, France) was a French fashion designer, a master couturier during the first two decades of the 20th century. He was the founder of his namesake haute couture house.
Early life and care ...
,
Jeanne Lanvin
Jeanne-Marie Lanvin (; 1 January 1867 窶 6 July 1946) was a French haute couture fashion designer. She founded the Lanvin fashion house and the beauty and perfume company Lanvin Parfums.
Early life
Jeanne Lanvin was born in Paris on 1 Januar ...
, who opened a boutique in 1909 on the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honorテゥ, and who also branched out into perfume, introducing a fragrance called Arpティge in 1927; and the
House of Worth
The House of Worth was a French fashion house that specialized in haute couture, ready-to-wear clothes, and perfumes. It was founded in 1858 by English designer Charles Frederick Worth. It continued to operate under his descendants until 1952 and c ...
, which also introduced perfumes, with bottles designed by
Renテゥ Lalique
Renテゥ Jules Lalique (6 April 1860 窶 1 May 1945) was a French jeweller, medallist, and glass designer known for his creations of glass art, perfume bottles, vases, jewellery, chandeliers, clocks, and automobile hood ornaments.
Life
Lalique's ...
. The reign of the old houses was challenged by the arrival of new designers, most notably
Coco Chanel
Gabrielle Bonheur "Coco" Chanel ( , ; 19 August 1883 窶 10 January 1971) was a French fashion designer and businesswoman. The founder and namesake of the Chanel brand, she was credited in the post-World War I era with popularizing a sporty, c ...
who put her own perfume, called
Chanel No. 5
Chanel No. 5 was the first perfume launched by French couturier Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel in 1921. The scent formula for the fragrance was compounded by French-Russian chemist and perfumer Ernest Beaux. The design of its bottle has been an impo ...
on the market in 1920. She introduced her famous "little black dress" in 1925. Other major Paris designers of the period included
Jean Patou
Jean Patou (; 27 September 1887 窶 8 March 1936) was a French fashion designer, and founder of the Jean Patou brand.
Early life
Patou was born in Paris, France in 1887. Patou's family's business was tanning and furs. Patou worked with his ...
,
Elsa Schiaparelli
Elsa Schiaparelli ( , also , ; 10 September 1890 窶 13 November 1973) was a fashion designer from an Italian aristocratic background.
She created the house of Schiaparelli in Paris in 1927, which she managed from the 1930s to the 1950s. ...
,
Madeleine Vionnet
Madeleine Vionnet (; June 22, 1876, Loiret, France 窶 March 2, 1975) was a French fashion designer. Vionnet trained in London before returning to France to establish her first fashion house in Paris in 1912. Although it was forced to close in 1 ...
, who fled the Spanish Civil War and opened a shop on the Avenue George V in 1937;
Jacques Heim
Jacques Heim (8 May 1899 窶 8 January 1967) was a French fashion designer and costume designer for theater and film, and was a manufacturer of women's furs. From 1930 to his death in 1967, he ran the fashion house (''maison de couture'') ''Ja ...
, and Nina Ricci, who opened her shop in Paris in 1932.
By the late 1930s, the dismal economy had greatly reduced the number of customers. The fashion house of Paul Poiret, which had dominated Paris fashion before World War I, closed in 1929. In the Pavilion of Elegance at the 1937 Exposition, only twenty-nine designers remained to show their collections. During this period, the center of the Paris high fashion world gradually moved west from the center, closer to its wealthy clients; it became established around the Champs-テ瑛ysテゥes, particularly on avenue Montaigne, rue Francois-I, rue Marbeuf and the rue du Faubourg-Sant-Honorテゥ.
The stock market crash in New York in 1929 was the beginning of a series of economic downturns which reached Paris in 1931 and 1932. Paris factories produced more goods than European or American consumers could buy, and exports declined. As other European countries devalued their currencies to meet the crisis, French exports became too expensive, and factories cut back production and laid off workers. Fewer wealthy tourists came to Paris, reducing the demand for luxury goods. A socialist prime minister,
Leon Blum
Leon, Lテゥon (French) or Leテウn (Spanish) may refer to:
Places
Europe
* Leテウn, Spain, capital city of the Province of Leテウn
* Province of Leテウn, Spain
* Kingdom of Leテウn, an independent state in the Iberian Peninsula from 910 to 1230 and again fro ...
, was elected in 1936, and formed a
Popular Front
A popular front is "any coalition of working-class and middle-class parties", including liberal and social democratic ones, "united for the defense of democratic forms" against "a presumed Fascist assault".
More generally, it is "a coalition ...
government. He introduced a forty-hour week and two weeks of paid vacation for French workers, and devalued the Franc by 29 percent, but industrial production continued to fall and inflation erased the gains in salaries. A new government under radical politician
テ嬰ouard Daladier
テ嬰ouard Daladier (; 18 June 1884 窶 10 October 1970) was a French Radical-Socialist (centre-left) politician, and the Prime Minister of France who signed the Munich Agreement before the outbreak of World War II.
Daladier was born in Carpentr ...
took office in August 1938, and changed economic policies, encouraging investment and raising prices. Inflation stopped, the Franc stabilized, and production increased by 15 percent between November 1938 and June 1939. As the threat of war loomed, the government increased military spending, stimulating the economy further and increasing employment, until the beginning of the war in September 1939.
World War II ruined the engines of the Paris economy; the factories, train stations and railroad yards around the city had been bombed by the Allies, there was little coal for heat, electricity was sporadic at best. Nonetheless, the reconstruction went ahead rapidly, aided by 2.6 billion dollars in grants and loans from the United States given under the
Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan (officially the European Recovery Program, ERP) was an American initiative enacted in 1948 to provide foreign aid to Western Europe. The United States transferred over $13 billion (equivalent of about $ in ) in economic re ...
between 1948 and 1953, administered locally from the Hotel Talleyrand on the Place de la Concorde, which allowed France to finance two-thirds of its exterior debt and to buy new machinery for its factories.
Even before the war ended, the government had begun nationalizing much of the Paris industry; between 1944 and 1946 it nationalized the Renault factory, the coal mines and oil companies, Air France, and all the major banks and insurance companies. An important part of the planning of the new economy was conducted by
Jean Monnet
Jean Omer Marie Gabriel Monnet (; 9 November 1888 窶 16 March 1979) was a French civil servant, entrepreneur, diplomat, financier, administrator, and political visionary. An influential supporter of European unity, he is considered one of the ...
between 1946 and 1951; Monnet used the lessons learned to create the European Common Market. By 1948, French industrial production had come back to its prewar level. The 1950s were the beginning of the ''Trente Glorieuses'', almost thirty years of rapid and steady growth. Between 1951 and 1968, the French economy grew at an average rate of 5 percent a year, reaching 6.5 percent between 1966 and 1968. The need for more workers led to increasing numbers of immigrants, coming mostly from North Africa on labor contracts.
In the 1970s, the ''Trente Glorieuses'' came to an end. Under the pressure from trade unions, salaries and the cost of production grew quickly (7.1 percent in 1969, 6.3 percent in 1970, 8.5 percent in 1973), even faster than inflation (4 percent between 1960 and 1968); gradually, even with increases in productivity, goods made in France were more expensive than those made in Germany, Britain, the United States and Japan. French industry had difficult being competitive, even with modernization. The Citroen assembly line in Paris had closed in the 1970s. The Renault assembly line at Billancourt, one of the biggest factories in the Paris region, closed permanently in 1992. The rapid and unexpected increase in oil prices after the 1973 Arab-Israeli War also hit the French economy hard. In the early 1980s the cost of imports into France grew twice as quickly as the value of French exports. The Mitterrand government responded with a new wave of nationalizations of major French banks, industrial companies, and manufacturers including Thomson, Saint-Gobain, and Rhone-Poulenc. However, beginning 1986, the Mitterrand government decided to reverse course, and privatized most of the companies it had earlier taken over. Between 1983 and 1986, the unemployment rate passed 10 percent and the number of unemployed grew from 1.9 million to 2.5 million.
Between 1988 and 1995, the Paris economy recovered some of its earlier growth; inflation was kept low, labor costs grew less quickly, but unemployment remained stubbornly high, particularly in the Paris suburbs.
Employment in the Paris ''Aire Urbaine'' (1999)
At the 1999 census, there were 5,089,179 persons employed in the Paris ''aire urbaine'' (or "metropolitan area"). At the same 1999 census, 4,949,306 people living in the Paris ''aire urbaine'' had a job. The almost 140,000 people difference between these two figures comes from an outflow of about 60,000 people living inside the ''aire urbaine'' who work outside of it, and an inflow of about 200,000 people living outside of the ''aire urbaine'' who come to work inside it every day. Thus, out of the 5,089,179 people employed in the Paris ''aire urbaine'' in 1999, only about 200,000 people (3.9% of the total) lived outside of it, which is not surprising since the boundaries of the '' aires urbaines'' are based on commuting patterns.
Well into the middle of the 20th century, the majority of jobs in the ''aire urbaine'' were concentrated in the city of Paris proper. However, after the Second World War the economic activity relocated to the suburbs, and the city has been steadily losing jobs to the benefit of the suburbs, in particular the
Hauts-de-Seine
Hauts-de-Seine (; ) is a Departments of France, dテゥpartement in the テ四e-de-France Regions of France, region, Northern France. It covers Paris's western inner Banlieue, suburbs. It is bordered by Paris, Seine-Saint-Denis and Val-de-Marne to the e ...
(92) ''
dテゥpartement
In the administrative divisions of France, the department (french: dテゥpartement, ) is one of the three levels of government under the national level ("territorial collectivity, territorial collectivities"), between the regions of France, admin ...
'', home of the new ''
La Dテゥfense
La Dテゥfense () is a major business district in France, located west of the city limits of Paris. It is part of the Paris metropolitan area in the テ四e-de-France region, located in the department of Hauts-de-Seine in the communes of Courbevoie, ...
'' business district, to the west of the city proper. Today, the city of Paris is not properly speaking the economic centre of the ''aire urbaine'' since most of the offices are in fact located in the western half of the city proper and in the central portion of the
Hauts-de-Seine
Hauts-de-Seine (; ) is a Departments of France, dテゥpartement in the テ四e-de-France Regions of France, region, Northern France. It covers Paris's western inner Banlieue, suburbs. It is bordered by Paris, Seine-Saint-Denis and Val-de-Marne to the e ...
dテゥpartement
In the administrative divisions of France, the department (french: dテゥpartement, ) is one of the three levels of government under the national level ("territorial collectivity, territorial collectivities"), between the regions of France, admin ...
, forming a triangle between the
Opテゥra
This is a glossary list of opera genres, giving alternative names.
"Opera" is an Italian word (short for "opera in musica"); it was not at first ''commonly'' used in Italy (or in other countries) to refer to the genre of particular works. Most c ...
,
La Dテゥfense
La Dテゥfense () is a major business district in France, located west of the city limits of Paris. It is part of the Paris metropolitan area in the テ四e-de-France region, located in the department of Hauts-de-Seine in the communes of Courbevoie, ...
and the
Val de Seine
The Val de Seine is one of the most important business districts of the Paris agglomeration. Located southwest of the city, it spreads along a bend of the Seine, mainly in the municipalities
of Boulogne-Billancourt and Issy-les-Moulineaux and in th ...
district. Hauts-de-Seine has become a sort of extension of central Paris, with 873,775 persons employed there in the end of 2005, more than half as many as in the city of Paris proper (1,653,551 persons employed in the city of Paris in the end of 2005).
As a consequence workers do not just commute from the suburbs to work in the city of Paris, but also come from the city of Paris to work in the suburbs. Of the 5,416,643 persons employed in the
Paris Region
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 kmツイ (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
in the end of 2005, only 1,653,551 (30.5%) worked inside the city of Paris proper, while 3,763,092 (69.5%) worked in the suburbs. However, once adding Hauts-de-Seine, the previous figures show that City of Paris and Hauts-de-Seine together still harboured 46.7% of all persons employed in the Paris Region in the end of 2005, which should help to put into perspective the phenomenon of job relocation to the suburbs: it was as much a relocation to the suburbs as an extension of central Paris beyond the administrative borders of the city.
During the 1960s and 1970s, the French government created several '' villes nouvelles'' ("new towns") on the outer ring of the Paris suburbs in order to multi-polarise the economy of the city. Economically speaking, those ''villes nouvelles'' have been a relative success since many companies are still moving into those areas today. However, they didn't completely fulfil their role of multi-polarisation: economic activities still remain in a large measure concentrated in the central core (City of Paris and Hauts-de-Seine) of the ''aire urbaine'', as the above employment figures show.
By sector
The figures below, extracted from the 1999 census, show the distribution of the 5,089,179 persons employed in the Paris ''aire urbaine'' across the different economic sectors in the year 1999. This will give a sense of the extreme diversity of the Paris economy, marked nonetheless by the notable dominance of services.
* Primary sector: Agriculture, forestry, and fishing: 26,741 persons in employment (0.5% of total workforce)
* Secondary sector: Manufacturing and mining, construction, and utilities: 913,503 p. in emp. (17.9% of t. wf)
**Manufacturing (includes mining and oil and gas extraction): 627,534 p. in emp. (12.3% of t. wf) The manufacturing industries employing most people are:
***Electronic and electrical equipment, appliances, and components: 112,281 p. in emp. (2.2% of t. wf) This branch is made of: computers and peripheral equipment; mobile phones; radio and television broadcasting and wireless communications equipment; semiconductors and other electronic components; navigational, measuring, electro-medical, and control instruments; electrical engines; electric lighting equipment; miscellaneous electrical equipment (cables, transformers, switchboards, etc.). This branch DOES NOT include household electronic and electrical appliances (televisions, radios, DVD players, ovens, refrigerators, watches, clocks, etc.).
***Publishing, printing, and reproduction of recorded media: 87,599 p. in emp. (1.7% of t. wf) Books, newspapers, magazines, etc. This branch DOES NOT include the motion picture and sound recording industries, neither does it include the broadcasting industries.
***Foodstuff, beverages, and tobacco products manufacturing: 59,862 p. in emp. (1.2% of t. wf)
***Machinery and equipment manufacturing: 56,270 p. in emp. (1.1% of t. wf) This branch is made of: engine, turbine, and power transmission equipment; pumps and compressors; material handling equipment; ventilation, heating, air-conditioning, and commercial refrigeration equipment; agriculture, construction, and mining machinery; machine tools; industrial moulds; industrial machinery (plastics and rubber industry machinery, textile machinery, etc.); and other general purpose machinery (welding and soldering equipment, industrial process furnaces and ovens, scales and balances (except laboratory), etc.). This branch DOES ALSO INCLUDE three industries generally listed under "Fabricated metal products manufacturing" in Anglo-Saxon classifications: architectural and structural metals manufacturing; boilers, tanks, and shipping containers; and arms and ammunitions.
***Motor vehicles, trailers, and motor vehicle parts manufacturing ("car industry"): 52,149 p. in emp. (1.0% of t. wf)
**Construction: 235,872 p. in emp. (4.6% of t. wf)
**Utilities: Electricity, natural gas and water supply: 50,097 p. in emp. (1.0% of t. wf)
* Tertiary sector: Services: 4,148,935 p. in emp. (81.6% of t. wf) The services employing most people are:
**Business services (include rental and leasing services): 841,157 p. in emp. (16.5% of t. wf)
***Professional and technical services: 509,048 p. in emp. (10.0% of t. wf) This branch is made of: computer systems design and related services; data processing, hosting, and related services; software publishing; legal services; accounting, tax preparation, bookkeeping, and payroll services; management of companies and enterprises; administrative management and general management consulting; human resources and executive search consulting; marketing consulting; process, physical distribution, and logistics consulting; environmental consulting; advertising and related services; and architectural, engineering, and related services.
***Administrative, support, and waste management services: 272,981 p. in emp. (5.4% of t. wf) This branch is made of: employment services (placement, temporary); investigation and security services; services to buildings and dwellings; photographic services; office administrative services; translation and interpretation services; business support services (call centres, collection agencies, etc.); packaging and labelling services; convention and trade show organisers; and waste management and remediation services. This branch DOES ALSO INCLUDE renting and leasing of machinery and equipment without operator and of personal and household goods, which is generally listed along with "Real estate" in Anglo-Saxon classifications.
***Research and development: 59,128 p. in emp. (1.1% of t. wf)
**Commerce: 660,843 p. in emp. (13.0% of t. wf)
***Retail trade (except of motor vehicles) and repair: 308,323 p. in emp. (6.1% of t. wf)
***Wholesale and commission trade (except of motor vehicles): 276,282 p. in emp. (5.4% of t. wf)
***Sale, maintenance, and repair of motor vehicles: 76,238 p. in emp. (1.5% of t. wf)
**Public administrations and defense: 510,972 p. in emp. (10.0% of t. wf)
**Health services and social assistance: 451,373 p. in emp. (8.7% of t. wf)
**Transportation, storage, and communications: 419,779 p. in emp. (8.2% of t. wf) This branch is made of: public and private transportation of passengers and freight; warehousing and storage; travel agencies; post and couriers; and telecommunications.
**Education: 334,852 p. in emp. (6.6% of t. wf)
**Finance and insurance: 256,722 p. in emp. (5.0% of t. wf)
**Accommodation and food services (hotels and restaurants): 202,228 p. in emp. (4.0% of t. wf)
Commerce and finance
Commerce: 660 843 employees
Retail stores (except automobiles) and repair: 308 323 employees
Wholesale and commissions (except cars): 276 282 employees
Sale, maintenance, and repair of automobiles: 76,238 employees
Public administration and defense: 510 972 employees
Brexit
After Brexit, the
European Banking Authority
The European Banking Authority (EBA) is a regulatory agency of the European Union headquartered in Paris. Its activities include conducting stress tests on European banks to increase transparency in the European financial system and identifying ...