Once again, business start-ups were driven by those with auto-entrepreneur status under the French government's stimulus plan for small businesses: over 25,000 small businesses with auto-entrepreneur status were started in the Paris region in the 1st quarter of 2010, over twice the level recorded in the 1st quarter of 2009, when the new status was launched. As a result, the impact of auto-entrepreneur start-ups is becoming increasingly important as a share of the total number of start-ups in the Paris region: whilst businesses with auto-entrepreneur status represented 38% of the total in the 1st quarter of 2009, they accounted for 58% in the first three months of 2010. At the same time, traditional business start-ups remained more or less steady compared with the 1st quarter of 2009, falling back by just 1.5% (18,400 compared with 18,700 one year earlier). The trends seen at a national level are very similar, although the drop in the number of traditional start-ups was slightly higher (-3.2% over one year).

Business start-ups in the Paris Region (crude data)

Source: Insee Ile-de-France