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Welcoming Tech Talent from Around the World to France

visa.lafrenchtech.com

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Re: Welcoming Tech Talent from Around the World to France

#211

Post by pjmlp »

scottLobster wrote: post #83
pjmlp wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As it should be. We don't have people calling themselves engineers just because can type a few lines of code.

And Europe wonders why it doesn't have any serious Facebook/Google competitors. An engineer is anyone who uses technology to solve a problem. Now there's a massive spectrum of quality there, but a piece of paper or two and some classwork doesn't make you an engineer. Or even a particularly good engineer. Just the other day I explained how Hash Tables work to someone with a Masters.

Lots of American tech in Facebook and Google has been created by Europeans with degrees that decided to work in US.

Should I make a list?

Re: Welcoming Tech Talent from Around the World to France

#212

Post by [deleted] »

gagabity wrote: post #205
tajen wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least 20% of French people express capitalism-hostile opinions (and it goes well beyond Mélenchon voters). You face hostility as soon as you make money, with consequences ranging from being denied places in the kindergarten to the "petit Gregory" affair where the 5 years old son of a newly promoted team leader was drowned. I'm trying to show off as much as I can that I'm sponsoring poverty, donating a lot, making…

What happens in September? I'm going on vacation over there!

[deleted]

Re: Welcoming Tech Talent from Around the World to France

#213

Post by xiaoma »

They're requiring masters degrees for entrepreneur visas. One thing Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Lei Jun, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Travis Kalanic and Cheng Wei all have in common is a lack of a master's degree.

Why would France add a restriction to their visa that would have eliminated the founders of Amazon, Paypal, Tesla, SpaceX, Apple, Xiaomi, Facebook, Microsoft, Oracle, Uber and Didi Chuxing?

Are they pinning all their hopes on someone following the path of Larry Page or Robin Li, except choosing to immigrate to France to start their search engine? Are the people who made the rule just not aware how few of the top tech company founders have master's degrees? Is it some kind of intentional low-beta strategy to try to scoop up a bunch of more certain, smaller wins?

I truly don't understand what kind of reasoning went into to this program. It's just making France look out of touch.

Edit: ok apparently the founder needs money and it's employees who all need masters degrees (nearly as bad).

Re: Welcoming Tech Talent from Around the World to France

#214

Post by ghgr »

zmb_ wrote: post #175
corford wrote: post #46

It looks great on paper but the devil will be in the detail and how well they execute on the admin/bureaucracy side. If my experience a few years ago with the auto entrepreneur scheme and URSAFF are anything to go by, you'll need a lot of patience, the ability to speak half decent French and a sense of humour if you want to avoid ripping all your hair out :) I love France (have even married one of their citizens!) bu…

> the ability to speak half decent French After having lived and worked in multiple EU countries, I'm convinced that language is the single biggest barrier to true freedom of movement of workers in the EU. In Germany, for example, you cannot assume any daily task can be accomplished without the German language. You're then faced with either constantly dealing with communication problems with everything in your life,…

> What is needed is a joint common language

Great! I propose Spanish, being the second most spoken language by number of native speakers (behind Chinese), and given the relevance of Spain through history in Europe.

(this comment was only half joking. It's easy to impose a global language when it's yours, but you see, it's a different story when you need to learn a different one).

Re: Welcoming Tech Talent from Around the World to France

#215

Post by [deleted] »

peteretep wrote: post #186
GuiA wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah that's the big debate, isn't it? Is a 4 years anglophone BSc equivalent to a 3 years european Licence, or 5 years Master? When I was applying to grad schools in the US, my French undergrad was not recognized as a proper undergrad - it had to be a 5 year Master (I snuck around that restriction by spending a year in the UK and getting a british BSc). But of course, French institutions consider 4 years american deg…

Most UK BScs are 3 years (aren't they?), so Anglophone is misleading

[deleted]

Re: Welcoming Tech Talent from Around the World to France

#216

Post by graniter »

I live and work in France and I am well versed in this type of Visa. It's a very nice arrangement, but it's still France. It's still dealing with the same administrative burdens for everything else. You don't get treated special, you just have a special deal. I've said before that if France wants to attract foreign talent what they need to do is assign someone in the French administration to help workers get established. That is the hard part about coming to work in France. If you've dealt with the DMV in the US, imagine that for everything. You can't just walk into a bank and open an account. You can make an appointment for next week...which is your first consultation. You'll need to bring a long of documentation for your second appointment the week after. You won't get your bank card for awhile, and by the way you'll have to activate it before you can use it. That might take a week. You'll need to go to Paris for a medical check that you can do your job. All French employees must do this. And you have to do it every two years. Pee in a cup. Undress over there. You'll need to go to the prefecture to get your residence permit. It took me 5 months to get my initial appointment and a total of 9 months to get my card, even though the "long term visa" in your passport is only good for 3 months. Some people I know waited 2.5 years for their residence card, another over a year. More? The French healthcare system is pretty good, but you won't get on it until after several trips to the Social Security office. Whoops, your entire file was sent back to you because they needed some additional piece of documentation they didn't tell you about. Make another appointment. Repeat. Repeat. Drivers license? If you are 1 of 14 states you can exhcange easily, but you only have 1 year to do that, after which you have to go to driving school. 3000 euros. Better learn French to pass the test. Better learn French to navigate all the adminstration. So Year 1 you will not be productive. You will be running around trying to stay legally. For an entire year. Ask me how I know.

Re: Welcoming Tech Talent from Around the World to France

#217

Post by yaantc »

gagabity wrote: post #205
tajen wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least 20% of French people express capitalism-hostile opinions (and it goes well beyond Mélenchon voters). You face hostility as soon as you make money, with consequences ranging from being denied places in the kindergarten to the "petit Gregory" affair where the 5 years old son of a newly promoted team leader was drowned. I'm trying to show off as much as I can that I'm sponsoring poverty, donating a lot, making…

What happens in September? I'm going on vacation over there!

There's been a call for strikes to protest against the labor code reforms by several syndicates and far left parties (PC, Mélenchon's Insoumis). Expect the usual circus, but I don't think it'll be too bad. There were already some labor reforms under Hollande, and they went through. Now there's an even bigger majority for it. But syndicates and the far left have to go through the motions and protest on this. Get some popcorn, enjoy the show (not too close), you may see a traditional French protest while here. IIRC it should be around mid-September.

Re: Welcoming Tech Talent from Around the World to France

#218

Post by zdkl »

_kyran wrote: post #200
tajen wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least 20% of French people express capitalism-hostile opinions (and it goes well beyond Mélenchon voters). You face hostility as soon as you make money, with consequences ranging from being denied places in the kindergarten to the "petit Gregory" affair where the 5 years old son of a newly promoted team leader was drowned. I'm trying to show off as much as I can that I'm sponsoring poverty, donating a lot, making…

This is true. I've spent the past couple of months in various areas of France. I can't speak for all ages, but the youth are incredibly passionate about politics and many hold strong anti capitalism beliefs and will enthusiastically riot at the chance to have their opinions heard.

Yeah there's a lot of left leaning kids being caught in the student unions (unef & co). Those are propped up by the "real world" unions who are in turn very close to the different political parties.

The thing is, those left leaning student bodies are the only ones to have credible presence in most universities due to the amount of support they garner to push their communications and frankly the incompetence of the right leaning student orgs.

It's a bit of a self perpetuating cycle where the right leaning folks don't have as much support structure to coordinate because of how everyone (themselves included) see the right.

Re: Welcoming Tech Talent from Around the World to France

#219

Post by ramblerman »

xiaoma wrote: post #213

They're requiring masters degrees for entrepreneur visas. One thing Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Lei Jun, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Travis Kalanic and Cheng Wei all have in common is a lack of a master's degree. Why would France add a restriction to their visa that would have eliminated the founders of Amazon, Paypal, Tesla, SpaceX, Apple, Xiaomi, Facebook, Microsoft, Oracle, Ub…

There is a Founders Visa and an Employees visa.

Only the employee's visa requires a masters degree. All the big names you dropped were people that never intended to be employees.

I'm not sure what the problem is.

> It's just making France look worse.

This is just silly.

Re: Welcoming Tech Talent from Around the World to France

#220

Post by grp »

graniter wrote: post #216

I live and work in France and I am well versed in this type of Visa. It's a very nice arrangement, but it's still France. It's still dealing with the same administrative burdens for everything else. You don't get treated special, you just have a special deal. I've said before that if France wants to attract foreign talent what they need to do is assign someone in the French administration to help workers get establis…

You'll need to go to Paris for a medical check that you can do your job. All French employees must do this. And you have to do it every two years. Pee in a cup. Undress over there.

Is it a joke? Never heard of that in 30 years..

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