I seriously doubt it. There are just too many hurdles to get over. Even trying to get staff from another EU office to come and work is a pain the arse, as my previous place of work discovered when they tried to get one of the devs to move to Paris for a few months.
Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?
21–30 of 324 posts
Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?
#22Hiring and firing people in France is particularly hard. Most companies do not scale beyond 10 employees as after this threshold the regulatory burden increases dramatically. Taxes on small to medium businesses are downright confiscatory. Most French people still see business owners as exploiters of their workers.
Yep you've highlighted the main issues here.
Kidnapping a CEO because the company isn't making any money and shutting its doors is the culmination of an ultra-unionised population.
Don't get me wrong, unions were vital in the 40-70's as there was a clear abuse of the workforce. But today, the workforce can't wrap their heads around how a balance sheet works.
And all those social laws make hiring and firing very hard, which is at the core of startup culture.
Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?
#23It has historically been difficult to fire employees in France, compared with the US. Apparently they considered relaxing this policy on 2016 [1], but IDK whether their efforts were successful. Considering the Silicon Valley mantra of “hire slow, fire fast”, it will be interesting to see how things evolve in France. Will they relax their labor laws/customs, or will they find a different way for startups to grow? 1: h…
There has been an "Auto Entrepreneur" status created a few years ago (2010?) that is used by many startups (mainly gig-economy like drivers/delivery/...) which has helped a lot to get started. It's not an employee status, more like a contractor status. It's easy on the company, but not like freestyle though as abuse could be re-qualified as a regular contract ("CDI" ie. employee contract) by a judge.
Regular employment is still much protected for the employee.
Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
Recently helped a friend launch a French subsidiary. It is a pain. First, you must pay a lawyer or formation agent to write and register your by-laws. Next, you must seek an introduction to a bank manager. With that secured, you get to draft a book report of a business plan. This is tedious and pointless. Once completed, the bank manager reviews it. (They will also ask for lots of personal documents, each requiring e…
And that is not the worst part. When you sell your company, you may have to wait between 6 to 9 months to get your money! Basically, taxes are always delayed and to calculate the exact amount that you owe to the diverse government agencies, it takes an army of accountants. Even sometimes the accountants do not know what is going on as the tax laws are always changing, sometimes at the last minutes. Meanwhile, you hav…
The advice I was given, by a competent European lawyer, was to set up a Luxembourg S.A. which, in turn, was to hold asset-light subsidiaries in each country. (This is how Spotify is structured.)
Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?
#25I don't know much about the startup landscape in France (or anywhere in the EU), but I've always heard that it is difficult to incorporate a small company and hire employees due to large regulatory/bureaucracy hurdles. The "move fast, break things" pattern of setting up a Delaware LLC and getting an angel seed in a matter of days/weeks really just doesn't work. Can anyone comment on this? Is this way off base?
Get a French accountant to do it for you. It costs virtually nothing, and they will take care of all the paperwork for you.
Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?
#26I actually looked into this with the local France Business startup organization. At the time, I was young (30, I am now 31) and started learning French with hopes of trying out a alternative to Anglo culture.
But reality hits hard. I don't know how I would be able to adjust from living in a multicultural and laws where minorities are protected and enforced to a republic where it is not. Once you are in France, you are expected to become fluent to the point of having no accent, because god forbid if you come from Quebecois speaking region you will get bullied and made fun of.
So it's like wtf???? Here I am learning your culture and trying my best but it won't mount to shit if it's not French.
Very dangerous to set elusive set of criterias based on ethnocentric ideas and see what sticks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQzR6zKpbKQ
The most crazy part is that it's other minorities attacking other minorities in France.
Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?
#27Maybe start-ups as groups created in large companies that take on copying emerging US enterprises?
Small companies are not supported in the EU because of regulatory hurdles, excessive taxation and employment laws one size fits all. Most businesses are grant driven - that is you write a business plan that satisfies bureaucrats, get money and hope to stay afloat for year or two so you don't have to give it back. Rinse and repeat. There is no room for innovation. In some EU countries entrepreneurs are treated as potential criminals until proven innocent.
Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?
#28Hiring and firing people in France is particularly hard. Most companies do not scale beyond 10 employees as after this threshold the regulatory burden increases dramatically. Taxes on small to medium businesses are downright confiscatory. Most French people still see business owners as exploiters of their workers.
Seconded. In French culture the “boss” is traditionally considered as an asshole. While I’m not saying there aren’t bad bosses out there, this kind of hostile culture towards management doesn’t really help anything. Taxes are awful as well, and filing them is a pain, even for a sole trader.
The social ladder is also broken. If you don't have the right diploma, no matter what your skills are you will never make it to the top.
There is a real mindset of "Us vs Them" where "Them" is your boss or manager and you should despise them no matter what.
I have left France 5 years ago due to those issues, I am now much happier in a country where your skills come first and nobody cares what you did before so long as you can do the job that is required of you.
France will most likely never be like that.
Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?
#29what does "startup nation" even mean?
A nation where you can abuse your workers and exploit them by promising financial gain, work them to the bone with low pay and benefits, and actually deliver nothing for them. AKA America.
I flagged you because I am seriously sick of seeing questions get answered by pure concentrated sarcasm. You don't even attempt to be helpful here.
There's a middle ground between "worker abuse" and "useless bureaucracy". France is closer to the latter right now (I'm french, I've got experience setting up companies both in the US and in France).
This is because:
1. Many systems aren't properly automated and/or don't know how to communicate between each other. So you have to deal with extra paperwork when not necessary. Go in-person somewhere that isn't even necessarily the city you live in, you have to plan ahead for these things. Fax or snail-mail things where email would be sufficient. Etc.
2. Complying with european laws isn't always easy. You sometimes have to deal with slightly-different versions of certain laws, regulations, etc for no good reason. This is what the EU is supposed to fix, and the EU helps but it doesn't always work.
3. Complying with VAT is super hard for the same reasons. This is being worked on in 2018 and 2019. It should be getting easier soon.
4. There's less tooling, documentation, and marketing around creating startups in France. If you're in the EU you'll be tempted to do it in Ireland for tax reasons. Otherwise you'll end up in Delaware. This isn't even because it's necessarily a good idea for your case, but simply because everyone else is doing it.
But, you know, your helpful cynicism too.
Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?
#30It's not real. If it was, YC should be involved (because they are the best at that). It's a old story because he needs to talk about something.
The previous governement created a fund for that. It is nearly totally unaffected (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bpifrance).
He does nothing because there is nothing to do. France destiny is sealed by european threaties. To change something the treaties must be broken but people are afraid by that. France is in a waitstate until something happens at a global scale (like a war).