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Did public aid to firms investing in the disadvantaged urban and rural areas of Wallonia known as “free zones” improve the attractiveness of these areas? This paper reports on the main results of the evaluation of this place-based policy conducted by IWEPS (the Walloon Institute for Evaluation, Forecasting, and Statistics) as part of an evaluation of the Plan Marshall 2.Vert. The method is based on a double difference estimation using panel data. Our dataset comes from the regional public service in charge of various economic subsidies and gives all the necessary information on granted investment projects. Our empirical investigations aim to assess the impact of the increased investment grant on the number and on the total amount of investment programs planned for the free zones. Our results fail to show any statistically significant impact of this investment-aid premium with respect to either the number of investment projects or the total amount of investment in these economic zones. JEL: R11, R58, C23