A PLATE-GLASS roof connects two former textile factories under a soaring atrium. There are potted palm trees in the entrance and industrial-chic open spaces, where youngsters in jeans huddle over laptops amid low-hanging light bulbs and exposed brickwork. This is EuraTechnolo-gies, a vast startup incubator, which has helped to turn a formerly abandoned site in this northern French city into a humming canal-side neighbourhood, ibm is moving 700 people into a European client-innovation centre here, complete with an in-house yurt. A sleek new gastro-brasserie has opened on the plaza. A bilingual crèche offers its infants English, as well as organic meals.
展开▼
