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Welcoming Tech Talent from Around the World to France

visa.lafrenchtech.com

221–230 of 408 posts

Re: Welcoming Tech Talent from Around the World to France

#221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would have excluded Bill Gates, Larry Ellison and Steve Jobs.

...as well as millions of other non-graduates you never heard of, with good reason. For any random field, it is easy to pick outliers. The question is, what matters more to you - rejecting a few false negatives or a lot more false positives.

In startups, nearly all the value is in the outliers. Black swan farming beats conservative strategies with even one success in a decade.

Re: Welcoming Tech Talent from Around the World to France

#222
post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If you really want to have some fun go poking around high school and facultés de science humaines. You'll probably get to witness "the che" flags on faculty buildings and students barricading the ways in. Why? Neither we nor them know.

Re: Welcoming Tech Talent from Around the World to France

#223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but the French example is moving suburbs in a city. The could have moved less than a few km and had a problem.

A département is not a suburb within a city - it's a large region of France, equivalent to a county in the UK, except with a totally different administrative setup.

That's true, but there is the special case of Paris, which is itself a département and has its suburbs (depending on how strictly you define the term) stretching over three to seven different départements. If you move within the Paris metropolitan area, it's easy to change département even while staying in the suburbs of the same city.

Also, the large regions of France are called "régions" ;-)

Re: Welcoming Tech Talent from Around the World to France

#224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would have excluded Bill Gates, Larry Ellison and Steve Jobs.

They would have clicked on the 'Startup Founder' link instead. Or later, they could click on the 'Investor' link

...and the would have never be taken seriously. Social/family connections were crucial to them.

Re: Welcoming Tech Talent from Around the World to France

#225
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.

Yeah, and they would never have needed a special visa.

It's sad, there is so much myths and fantasies around those specific guys.

Re: Welcoming Tech Talent from Around the World to France

#226
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!

I wouldn't worry for your vacations. Here are two recurrent periods of strikes:

- Generally, strikes start in unis and high schools in the far end of September, and, depending on the year, they may develop into fully-grown national riots in public companies (SNCF) then private companies, or if there's no political following, they die off with the October school holidays. This year I'm forecasting a lot of following, because Macron intends to take controversial decisions about employment laws during this summer.

- Flight strikes are rather planned for Christmas holidays (20 Dec-3 Jan). They have internal reasons and are generally not related to the October strike season. So, your September holidays are safe ;)

Re: Welcoming Tech Talent from Around the World to France

#227
post #220

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..

I work for a major French engineering company, and have done so in France - I don't know what job OP has, but my company does NOT make you do this.

Also worth noting that I've had to do this in other countries; I'd say it's more problematic elsewhere.

I would however say that yes, the French bureaucracy is something else entirely. But if you are friendly to them and show your face things will happen faster.

Re: Welcoming Tech Talent from Around the World to France

#228
post #18

This seems sort of like the kind of visa system the USA would advertise to attract a particular talented group, does it not? The founder visa looks quite friendly and easy, but it's four years. What happens after that? And what if the startup fails, does the founder have to leave France? I also wonder how appealing these international visa programs will be in light of the changing US immigration and visa system. Will…

> it's four years. What happens after that?

It says right there on the page that it's renewable. Also, if you are in the country legally for four years, and you work and pay taxes, it should be easy to get some other kind of permanent residence permit. After one more year, you can even apply for citizenship.

Re: Welcoming Tech Talent from Around the World to France

#229
post #30

Wow you have to have a graduate degree to even be an eligible employee, never mind.

As far as trades/professions are concerned, you need a degree or a certificate of some kind for virtually everything in France (from being a hairdresser all the way up to doctors/lawyers).

Yeah there's a joke about how much "bac+N years" is expected in there somewhere, along the lines of englands "it's regulation".

Re: Welcoming Tech Talent from Around the World to France

#230

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…

I am French and I went through the process of immigrating to both the UK and the US. While I agree that France is particularly painful about burocracy, what you describe is not a breeze elsewhere either.

You have to compare with other systems, cause I don't know of any immigrants who can say "oh coming here was so easy".

That is unless you're sent by a big company who takes care of everything.

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