Following the merger between Peugeot and Fiat-Chrysler the new company (Stellantis) is also headquartered in the Netherlands, though I believe that Fiat-Chrysler already was.
That's a recurring issue for France because they are not business-friendly. It's not even a question of being a tax-heaven (the Netherlands are not) but simply to make everything unduly complex and costly. We've also seen that following Brexit: Banks would move from London to Paris! Err, no they didn't move or moved to Amsterdam...
> but simply to make everything unduly complex and costly
I disagree with that characterisation, doing business in France is not that complex. Amsterdam has a giant advantage though - the English language is widely spoken and accepted, which really isn't the case in Paris. If an international organisation is looking to move from London, Amsterdam makes much more sense than Paris, even if we disregard the taxes side of things.
It's complex and costly enough enough that France keeps losing out. It's ridiculous, really, because there is no good reason for this. It's a mix of lack of self-awareness and ideology.
France is not an isolated case, though. Many countries are like that, sadly.
> It's a mix of lack of self-awareness and ideology
Respectfully disagree. The current president, who was just reelected, literally won his first campaign on "i'll improve things for business, make it easier, enable startups, optimise government expenditures". And he enacted many business-oriented reforms that have enabled quite a startup boom ( for the French and EU standards, of course it's nowhere close to the US due to a myriad of factors like available financing). There's awareness of the challenges, and what ideology would that be?
They always win campaigns by promising a lot of things and then rarely deliver. He is no exception, overall the 'reforms' have been minimal and the 'old recipes' (I.e. hand government subsidies as soon as people complain) have not changed.
Ideology, well just with my comments here many would label me 'liberal', which in France is borderline derogatory for some people with the meaning of 'free market capitalist bent on exploiting the working-class', simply for stating that there may be no need for millions of civil servants, myriads of taxes, and red tape for everything... the far left dominates the left at the moment, after all.
Self-awareness because many people in France do not even realise this or how simple things could be. For instance, the 'attestation' people needed to fill in to leave their homes during Covid lockdowns. From abroad it looked like pointless red tape madness, while in France someone obviously seriously thought that was a good idea and they were very serious about it.
That's a recurring issue for France because they are not business-friendly. It's not even a question of being a tax-heaven (the Netherlands are not) but simply to make everything unduly complex and costly. We've also seen that following Brexit: Banks would move from London to Paris! Err, no they didn't move or moved to Amsterdam...