In That Sweet Enemy, their joyous history of Britain and France, Robert and Isabelle Tombs trace several centuries of antagonism and (occasional) affection between the two countries. It is striking to read how early national stereotypes about each other were formed and how long they have lasted.
Queen Victoria found the French so “fickle, corrupt, and ignorant” that it was hopeless to believe they could be sensibly governed. “I fear they are as incurable as a nation though so charming as individuals,” she wrote. About the same time, French writers attributed Oscar Wilde’s homosexuality to Anglo-Saxon furniture, Liberty fabrics and the unattractiveness of skinny English women made “mannish” by sport.
Yet as the two historians (a British and French couple) explain, in many respects the two countries are “non-identical twins.” Both are former colonial, middling European powers with ideas above their global station. In both countries, GDP, population, life expectancy, murder rates, Olympic gold medals and even the average age of first sexual intercourse were pretty much the same. (The book was published in 2006.)
Two ways in which they now differ are that Britain has won many more Nobel prizes (143 vs 76) while France’s men have won twice as many football world cups (2 vs 1).
Now this historic rivalry between the two countries has found a new outlet: the startup sector. A recent report from Dealroom, arguing that Paris had for the first time overtaken London as Europe’s top startup hub, has caused a commotion on both sides of the Channel. As Le Monde commented: “A divine surprise, Paris has supplanted London.”
National pride and hurt will be on full display this week as both countries host their biggest tech jamborees: London Tech Week and VivaTech in Paris. Perhaps it is a good thing that these events coincide, making it difficult to attend both.
The Dealroom report acknowledges that London remains ahead of Paris in terms of the enterprise value created by VC-backed startups: $593bn vs $286bn as at end 2024. And according to our own Sifted data, London boasts more billion-dollar startups than Paris: 38 vs 23.
But Paris has been growing faster than London, according to Dealroom. It is particularly strong in the white-hot sector of AI where Paris has established a global reputation as an industry hotspot with Mistral drawing a lot of attention. The report ranks Paris fifth in the world as an AI hub (behind the Bay Area, New York, Toronto-Waterloo and Los Angeles) with London in seventh place.
There is certainly a lot that London — and the rest of the European ecosystem — can learn from France. The country’s excellence in technical education provides an impressive pipeline of engineering talent. The vision and drive of Xavier Niel in founding the world’s biggest startup incubator Station F and the coding school 42 and investing heavily in multiple startups has lifted the entire sector. And the public sector investment bank Bpifrance is Europe’s most active startup investor, according to Sifted’s Investor Tracker.
Meanwhile, the former banker Philippe Tibi has done an impressive job in persuading French institutional investors to allocate more money to growth capital — something that Britain is now trying to copy with its Mansion House Accord.
Even so, many techies in London would still challenge the assertion that their city has been overtaken by Paris. They point to Startup Genome’s 2024 report, which put London second equal with New York in its global startup ecosystem rankings, well ahead of Paris in 14th place.
No matter what the report methodology used, or who has temporary bragging rights, it is clear that competition between London and Paris is a wonderful thing for the entire European ecosystem. As Laura Citron, chief executive of London & Partners, wrote in a Linkedin post: “A booming tech sector in Paris — two hours away — is brilliant for London.”
As That Sweet Enemy records in colourful detail, nothing stimulates the innovative juices in Britain and France as much as irritation that their cross-Channel neighbour might have shot ahead of them.
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/john-thornhill-france-uk-tech-ltw-vivatech/
