GUEST COMMENT: Young French people have no reason to come to London any more

More than 50 mm of monthly rainfall, looming tax increases, anti-banking sentiment, the fear of a weak coalition government, a spiraling budget deficit and a falling pound. London. Not necessarily as appealing as it once was for the young French finance elite.

There are an estimated quarter of a million French-born in the UK, most of them in London. At the peak of the property bubble, in 2005 and 2006, the French flocked to South Kensington, aka 'mini-Paris', where they felt very much at home amongst the brasseries, French fashion designers and the Lycee Francais.

As a hiring manager at BNP Paribas London between 2007 and 2009, I staffed my desk with numerous French banking interns and analysts. My impression was that SW7 was a bit pricey and a flat-share somewhere near the Edgware Road or Clapham Junction was more realistic.

More significantly, I began to query why the French continued to be drawn to the City of London, and why weren't they heading East to higher growth economies instead.

It's difficult to get official figures but anecdotal evidence suggests the tide is finally turning.

Fewer French CVs already

Adam Tobias, who runs a finance recruitment firm in London, says, "Over the last 12 months we have seen far fewer CVs from French technical staff - bankers, accountants - than usual."

"They used to come for higher salaries and opportunities as [they] often felt stifled in France unless they had been to one of the Grand Ecoles."

It's true that higher salaries, faster career progression, and the opportunity to work in an English-speaking metropolis, are all strong plus points for London. Josephine Minikin, recently relocated by her employer from Lyon to London feels: "In terms of opportunities and career development I would choose London above Paris."

But Minikin, who is currently juggling her job at a French-Swiss wealth management firm with a finance MSc at BPP Business School, thinks there are fewer jobs in the UK than before the financial crisis.

"People will choose to work where they find employment. A lot of it also depends on the future of the 'resident non-dom' status in the UK for French expatriates and the taxation rules as well as the UK government's approach to regulating the financial sector."

Asia is where it's at instead

Other young finance prospects see risks on the British horizon and are building connections in Asia. Parisian Aurelie Derche is completing the final six months of her ESSEC MBA in Singapore.

The re-vamped "Global Manager in Asia Program" combines 3 months of Asian business lectures and 3 months working for a local company. Derche, who starts in Singapore this summer along with 50 ESSEC classmates, has observed that "the balance of economic power is undoubtedly shifting towards Asia" and she hopes that "living and studying in

Singapore, an economic and educational hub of the region, as well as a doorway to many

Asian countries, will be an excellent starting block."

Further East, James Gao from the Shanghai Advanced Institute of Finance (SAIF) - a new finance hothouse sponsored by the city's municipal government to educate the future kings of China's Wall Street - feels the future is definitely moving towards financial centres like Shanghai. "In 2011 SAIF will be opening it's doors to foreign students and we hope the French will be among them".

Kate Jillings is the co-founder of BusinessBecause.com, a networking + news site for the business school world. Previously Kate was the Head of Strategic Marketing for Equities and Commodity Derivatives at BNP Paribas in London.-