Only Frankfurt and London are at a similar level as Paris in the EU for banking today, and if London ceases to be a viable alternative (due to passporting etc. post brexit), then Paris will end up taking a lot of that business for the simple reason labour laws and taxes are not the only things the banks need to care about, but also where their employees are willing to live and work.
My ex works in HR at executive level at a major investment bank. French labour laws etc. never comes up when they consider where to staff up/down (and they do continuously). As for corporate taxes, no investment bank has a problem finding schemes to shift profits around.
> They do have a lot of bad labor laws and quite high taxes, both of which have contributed to France having a very stagnant economy (both in terms of innovation and growth) for decades.
Their GDP per capita is largely moving in lockstep with the UK and Germany, despite far fewer hours worked per year for the average French worker. As it turns out there's very little evidence that these "bad labour laws and quit high taxes" have much impact on growth.
> Not to mention, France is increasingly an outlier in Europe with a punishing corporate income tax rate (33%).
In line with Germany.
> The average across Europe is about 20%. Why would an international bank want to be there, except for local French business purposes?
They are already there for purposes other than "local French business purposes". Many international banks have similar numbers of staff in Paris as in London.