Ile-de-France

Île-de-France generates €860 billion GDP—30% of French output from 2% of territory—demonstrating metropolitan primacy that exceeds even other centralized European capitals. Paris and its surrounding departments concentrate finance, headquarters, luxury goods, and cultural industries in patterns that reinforce rather than disperse power. This concentration creates the economic gravity that pulls talent from peripheral regions.

The 2024 Olympics provided infrastructure investment that accelerated transit development (Grand Paris Express), though construction disruption continues through 2030. Tourism (cultural, business, retail) generates billions annually; the Louvre alone receives 10 million visitors per year. Fashion houses, luxury conglomerates (LVMH, Kering, Hermès), and associated service industries create employment that regional alternatives cannot match.

Housing costs and inequality pose the region's central challenge. Prices in central Paris require incomes that most workers cannot earn; social housing concentrates in banlieues where opportunity gaps persist across generations. The 2023 pension protests and periodic Yellow Vest demonstrations remind that the prosperity visible in central arrondissements coexists with precarity in surrounding departments. Whether Île-de-France can maintain attraction while managing the social tensions concentration creates tests French political economy.