No, set up by hippy types in France in the 70’s I believe with radical styling mostly in leather and different colours. They are very comfy and last for years if you have them soled which usually wears out before the uppers.
Impoverished gentlemen who like French style shoes might find something interesting at Rudy’s of Paris who do chunky Paraboot lookalikes (but without the irritating tag on the outside) at a fifth the price of those French classics. Both are made in Portugal from good quality calfskin and are leather lined.
And for summer, they also do a wide range of reasonably priced loafers.
They also often have half price sales
I tend to wear Vans skate type shoes mostly these days because they’re comfy and last a few years when worn on rotation.
I live in my Blundstone boots*, currently. And Birkenstocks and Uggs* (the ones with proper rubber soles not the foam abominations) yes I went shopping in Australia 
I have been wearing Birkenstocks for over 40 years and don’t approve of what they are doing now. Vans are good summer footwear.
Have you seen the Crocs “Lego” shoes, now that is going too far - getting up stairs would be more than dangerous in those! Birkenstocks, yes I have worn them on and off for just as long and the proper ones like clogs but when the bunions appeared I had to stop wearing any sort of scrappy or clog shoes altogether so am making up for it now.
Crocs are horrific imho but maybe ok for beaches with hot sand? They seem too wide for normal wear where your shoe needs to stay on. Birkenstock’s narrow fitting is fairly wide but they don’t fall off. I haven’t got any foot problems though (thank you start-rite and the foot x-ray machine, remember those?) so choosing footwear is fairly simple.
After my bunion ops, the kiné who came three times per week to my home to help me strengthen my feet again advised me to never wear the croc clog style shoes you see folks wearing to the beach etc as they would do more harm than good as there is no proper support; I too could only ever wear Start-Rite shoes having very narrow feet but the bunions were a legacy of the female side of my family as they are genetic in many cases and both mum, nan and great nan suffered badly although mum had op but it did not work very well back in the early 1980’s, now its keyhole and you walk almost immediately afterwards.