It's tremendously arrogant to think it "needs" to be there. It wasn't there for quite a long time, and i doubt it "needs" to be there.
Maybe you're talking about their engineering office. You might think they made it to please politicians, but I think the real reasons is for recruitment. There are many talented engineers in France, some of them not willing to move to Zurich, London or Silicon Valley. If they want a chance to hire them they need an office in France.
Anyway, supposing they get rid of their engineering office in Paris as a revenge, they'll still need to have a business office like they have since 2002.
"You might think they made it to please politicians"
This is not even a secret. The original office existed because of certain folks not wanting to relocate, but it was only ever grown to please politicians. It was even made into a media event with eric schmidt and the president of france.
"but I think the real reasons is for recruitment"
This is false, sorry. I wish it wasn't. As I said, i'm pretty sure this isn't even secret.
"If they want a chance to hire them they need an office in France."
I'm just going to be blunt here: They did okay without having to hire them before, they would do okay without having to hire them afterwards.
This is not a knock on french engineering folks, really, it's more a statement "there is sufficiently high quality supply of engineers elsewhere that it is not actually necessary to be there".
Heck, the engineers in france are probably even significantly more expensive than elsewhere, too.
The office was not made, or expanded, for recruitment. It was, like a lot of other companies do, to have skin in the game.
"Google Inc. has a research-and-development contract with Google France. It pays for engineers to do Google work, such as coding for the Chrome browser for Apple’s iOS. In 2013, Google France spent €34.9 million on R&D.
...
More controversial is Google France’s contract with Google Ireland, which generated the bulk of Google France’s 2013 revenue of €231 million."
