#SALinParis: A TASTE OF THE OLD AND THE NEW IN PARIS
Paris is a city of contrasts, where century-old buildings can house companies developing the next big tech product.
Delegates of the ongoing SAL Business Mission Trip to the city immersed themselves in this unique juxtaposition on the trip’s first day, which began on Tuesday, 9 May 2023.
Insights into France’s buzzing crypto scene
At the Simmons & Simmons office along Boulevard de la Madeleine, our delegates met with representatives from the Association for the Creation of Crypto Assets (APLO), a prime broker for digital assets, Capsule Corp, a platform for Augmented NFT creation and development and Bpifrance, a French public sector investment bank.
There were lively conversations on the regulation of such assets around the world as our Singapore lawyers gained insights into key adoption figures of crpyto assets in France and the wider European Union. For veteran tax lawyer Ms Valerie Wu of Pinsent Masons, the biggest takeaway was an understanding of France’s approach to taxing capital gains from crpyto assets, as she tells us in this video.
Exclusive behind-the-scenes tour
After the session, delegates took a short stroll through Paris’ rain-soaked streets to the Palais Garnier, which is probably the most famous opera house in the world and as much a symbol of the French capital as icons like the Notre Dame Cathedral and the Louvre.
Thanks to SAL’s partners the French Ministry of Justice and the Paris Bar Association, we were given an exclusive behind-the-scenes tour of the sprawling 19th-century Palais Garnier, which is probably the most famous opera house in the world.
While visitors to Paris would be familiar with the opera house’s grand foyer, few have visited its basement levels, home to an underwater reservoir that is said to have inspired Gaston Leroux's 1910 novel The Phantom of the Opera (below).
Phones out in full force to take in the behind-the-scenes sights from the Paris Opera House
