In 2017, companies in the mainly non-farm and non-financial sectors generate €1,064 billion in value added, 52% of the value added by the entire French economy. The economic fabric is highly concentrated: around 250 large enterprises employ 27% of workers, generate 33% of the total value added and account for 46% of the balance sheet total. In contrast, there is a vast number of micro-enterprises, but they employ only 19% of salaried workers, generate 17% of the value added and account for 9% of the balance sheet total.

Tertiary activities (trade, transport-warehousing and non-financial commercial services) account for 63% of value added; manufacturing enterprises account for 28%. The latter are strongly oriented towards international markets (they account for 65% of exports) and are structurally more capital-intensive (they account for 37% of the balance sheet total). Lastly, 9% of the value added is generated by the construction sector.

These data are now established on the basis of the economic definition of the enterprise, resulting from the French Law on the Modernisation of the Economy of 2008, which makes it possible to give a better account of the organisation of a growing number of enterprises into groups of companies. With this new approach, the snapshot of the economic fabric is partly renewed. It appears to be more concentrated, with a greater contribution from large enterprises. The weighting of the manufacturing sector within the economy has increased, at the expense of trade and, in particular, services. Performance indicators for enterprises have also been amended: in the manufacturing sector, the profit margin and the investment rate are lowered, while the export rate and the ability to finance investment are increased. At the micro-economic level, these performance indicators are less dispersed.