Ahead of Brexit, Paris Tries a Business Makeover<br />A sign on the entrance door reads, in French, “On your mark, get ready, innovate!”<br />Since the lab opened in October, executives have been conferring with members of Parliament on drafting a new<br />and wide-ranging law to improve the business environment, expected to pass next year.<br />“You’ll accuse me of bashing the French,” he said over tea recently, “but earlier<br />this year, they announced that they would have regulators who speak English.<br />Within France, the legislative changes and Brexit efforts have their share of critics, many<br />of whom consider it further evidence that Mr. Macron is the “president of the rich.”<br />“The idea that companies won’t settle in France because of high taxes is a false argument,<br />that they tell us to pass policies that are difficult to justify in the eyes of the population,” said Alexandre Derigny a spokesman for the General Confederation of Labour, a group of trade unions.<br />During his campaign, he visited London, home to as many as 400,000 French expatriates, urging them to return to France<br />and “innovate.” And since his election, the government has started a highly aggressive campaign to poach jobs from London.<br />In February of this year, a delegation of French leaders in politics<br />and business met with more than 80 executives on the 37 floor of the Shard, a landmark building in London’s financial district.
