The Paris Bourse known as “Bourse de Paris” in French is the historical Paris stock exchange; this institution has been renamed as Euronext Paris from the year 2000 onwards. The official website of the Euronext Paris is euronext.com

Traditionally most of the stock trading proceeds were based in many of the important parts in the Parisian geography, which consisted of rue Quincampoix, which is the Quincampoix street; the rue Vivienne, which is the Vivienne street next to the Palais Royal or located at the back of the Opéra Garnier, which is a well known Paris opera house.

In the beginning of the early 19th century, the official proceedings of the Paris Bourse’s were operated from the Palais Brongniart also known as Palais de la Bourse, the architect of the Palais de la Bourse building is Alexandre-Théodore Brongniart).

In the later part of the 19th century, the stock markets in Paris were operated officially in the Compagnie des agents de change, which was managed and looked upon by the elected board of members of a stockbrokers’ syndical council.

The participants in the management proceedings contributed to obligatory roles involving the making of prices and for organizing the exchange proceedings in many of the different trading areas of the Bourse; however, the number of members involved in such management roles were pretty less when the bulk of the work load meant for the trading operations were concerned.

When the agents de changes, consisting of the official stockbrokers in the Paris Bourse were taken in to number, they were nearly 60 people on the board.

The official positions for the agent de change required the official to be a French citizen, they were to be nominated for the position by a former agent or by the members of the estate of the former agent, of they had to be approved by the Minister of Finance, and they were to be appointed by the decree of the President of the Republic.

Authoritatively, the agents de change were not able to trade for their own account, and they were not authorized to even be a counterpart for someone who required to make a buy or sell decision; these agents were to be brokers only pretty strictly, only intermediaries and nothing more.

The Paris Bourse is therefore referred to as “order-driven market”, as opposed to “quote-driven markets” or “dealer markets”, where the price-setting proceeds are managed by a dealer or market-maker.

In Paris, only agents de change will be able to get commission, for a rate fixed by law, for performing the role of an intermediary. This necessitated the requirement of a parallel market also known as the “La Coulisse”until the mid 20th century.

This market was functioning as an open outcry exchange, with the “agents de change” in the exchange floor of the Palais Brongniart; however, from 1986, the Paris Bourse began with electronic trading systems, by 1989, quotation was completely automated.
The Paris Bourse launched the Euronext in mid 1990s which was an alliance of many European stock exchanges.