Maybe the market is getting bigger for Rails devs there? I left France 5 years ago and the picture was grim then, Java/PHP had a literal death grip on the market. Well, since I'm coming back I guess that's good news :)
That said Paris is the best place to get started networking again. Be sure to go to the Paris.rb group which is very dynamic if you come back!
http://meetup.rubyparis.org/
Excellent! I'm in Paris but my wife's family is in Charente (Ruffec) and I go there often. We should setup some kind of local meetup group!!