The Paris Cluster

By Neil Dodds
16 March, 2007
Thomas Crampton of the International Herald Tribune's tech blog Metamedia reckons he's on to something: How come so many French high-tech and VC companies have their offices in the 8th arrondisement of Paris?

Have we discovered the existence of France's Silicon Valley? Someone's even come up with a Google Maps mash-up of the quartier, posting some of the company offices.

If that's the case - and who am I to argue with Google? - the tech community has gone upmarket in the past six or seven years. The 8th arrondisement is a fairly swish neighbourhood: President Chirac lives here, among others. But not that long ago, the new media community was clustered around République in the decidedly less chic northern 3rd, 10th and 11th arrondisements.

Multimedia TV, online magazines and other start-ups opened in the disused industrial spaces of "République Alley" and the Canal Saint-Martin. Many have gone to the big dot.com IPO in the sky... wonder have their founders grown up and smartened up in the 8th?

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