Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There? • Hacker News Board

Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

#181

Post by JumpCrisscross » Mon, May 28, 2018, 9:07 AM UTC

fermigier wrote: post #128

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #13

Earlier 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…

1. No need for a lawyer to draft the bylaws, you can copy-paste from various resources. 2. The newspaper ad thing still exists, is a reminiscence of the past but only adds 100 euros or something to the overall cost. 3. "Into this account you must deposit no less than €4,000." = probably if your company's capital is $4000. You can start with 1 euro of capital if you wish (but that's probably not the greatest idea). 4.…

Even taking your lowest-cost professional estimate, which deviates from experience and ignores several practical, if not official, costs, we’re talking about 2 weeks versus 24 hours and 4x the cost, with reference to Delaware. It’s a shockingly messy process compared with the U.S., U.K., Hong Kong or even Luxembourg.

Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

#182

Post by adventured » Mon, May 28, 2018, 9:07 AM UTC

erikb wrote: post #156

IanCal wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the "most abject poverty seen in the developed world" needs citing.

Funny how Americans get so shocked about it, while it is quite clear to the rest of the world. Honestly when I was visiting the US the first time, I was shocked how Second World everything was. Most people live in poor areas (of course most well off Americans don't travel to these part of towns so they don't see it). Many non-chain shops are struggling. Food prices are ridiculously high in comparison to the not that…

That's false. France has a higher cost of living and higher food prices [1], with a considerably lower overall median and full-time median income level, versus the US. US GDP per capita is also currently 50% higher than France. France has an unemployment rate ~120% higher than in the US. US wage growth has been roughly 8x to 10x that of France over the last 20 years (France only averaged 0.5% annual wage growth over that time).

So let's recap. France has: far lower median wages, far lower wage growth, a higher poverty rate, a higher homelessness rate, dramatically lower GDP per capita, and an economy that hasn't net expanded in over a decade.

In 1980 France had a higher GDP per capita than the US. In 1990 France was just barely behind the US on GDP per capita. Today it's about $40,000 vs $60,000; that gap is persistently widening, with France falling down the global economic ladder by the year. It also explains why wage growth has been so extremely low in France over that time.

[1] https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/rankings_by_country.js...

Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

#183

Post by pjc50 » Mon, May 28, 2018, 9:07 AM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #45

pilooch wrote: post #41

I run a machine learning company in France. Call it a startup or not, doesn't matter. Most of what I read in the comments here is not exactly true nor relies on statistics (sound like my story is...). For companies acting within the science or innovative space, France is a haven. CIR is a tax return that covers 30% of R&D personnel, JEI is a status that halves the taxes on personnel for 8 years, and nullifies gov tax…

> The truth is it is much much cheaper than in the US, and probably unmatched in Western Europe Business formation ( i.e. forming a legal entity, getting a bank account, hiring your first employee and getting paid for your first service) in France is much more expensive than in Britain, Luxembourg or Poland. And the U.S. is faster and cheaper still. That said, if you have the right connections, it can be a haven. The…

Can you form the company in e.g. Luxembourg and then operate in France? I feel that this is the sort of thing the Single Market was supposed to make easy.

Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

#184

Post by Uberphallus » Mon, May 28, 2018, 9:08 AM UTC

oelmekki wrote: post #172

dnomad wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People like to make a big deal of France's employment laws like there are some extraordinary overwhelming problem that businesses must struggle to overcome. This is silly. France is the 5th largest economy in the world. Finding highly educated, hard-working engineers is straightforwards thanks to the coordination between the government employment agencies and the excellent universities. Just like in America or anywhe…

As a french developer with a 10+ years career, I second that. I've also been a CTO, so I'm well aware of the employer point of view. I've seen many people worrying about not being able to fire people once hired. But what I've seen in facts are only two people needing firing, and it was done without any problem. What I saw incredibly more often is company getting into panic because their good developers would leave. I…

As a developer in France, and to compare to OP of this thread: I got fired because I created a company without telling my company. So I have both views in this matter. I got fired because there was a clause of "non-concurrence", but the market focus was different, geographic focus was different, all different except for doing tech. I brought it to court, it's ongoing.

Why did they do it? Because they were downsizing in the region (we went from 100 employees 6 years ago to 3 currently). So claiming I created that company to damage them, they pay 0€ as opposed to ~20000€. Now, make it times 100 and you got a non trivial amount of money even for a relatively big company. People were constantly "encouraged" to leave, benefits cut, comité d'entreprise dissolved they day we hit 49 employees, they accounted losses from other branches so we didn't get profit sharing either, and I know quite a few cases like mine with a variety of wonky excuses.

Now, in my own company I don't have a salary. Can't afford it, it's so insanely expensive to pay a salary, we're talking each month you pay total twice and a half as much as the employee sees BEFORE TAX. We don't hire people, we hire other companies and freelancers to do the job, then take dividends. There's no other way unless you're a cash flow workhorse.

Also, Paris might be different, but here all startups I've seen quickly moved to London or Berlin in the moment they got VC funding. It's just so expensive that even cities with significantly higher wages are cheaper.

Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

#185

Post by pjc50 » Mon, May 28, 2018, 9:16 AM UTC

clon wrote: post #94

adventured wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was increasingly a problem for US competitiveness. The US was bleeding a lot of successful companies to other countries for tax purposes, and it was getting worse (Pfizer tried to flee to Ireland). The average national rate in Europe is around 18%, and 21% for the EU. France is competing with this: Austria 25%, Spain 25%, Netherlands 25%, Italy 24%, Norway 23%, Denmark 22%, Sweden 22%, Portugal 21%, Slovakia 21%,…

What is the source of this information? In Estonia corporate income tax is essentially 0% - all re-invested income is tax-free, you only pay taxes when you eventually decide to pay out dividends (or salary). Which can be years, decades or never.

Most corporate tax systems don't count re-invested income for the purposes of taxation. It's why Amazon has such a low tax bill.

Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

#186

Post by flaie » Mon, May 28, 2018, 9:16 AM UTC

rdm_blackhole wrote: post #158

Legogris wrote: post #86

Just sharing another experience: I am a technical manager at a small-size big data company. We opened a new office in Paris three months ago and our largest struggle by far is recruiting talent. Despite what other comments here are writing, the startup scene is booming. Station F[1] is huge. The four WeWorks are full and they are opening two more soon. Global companies like Microsoft, Google, Facebook and Naver are g…

Correction, there are enough devs but the salaries are too low, so they go elsewhere like I did. I am not going to work 40+ hours a week or more to make 2500 euros and pay 1000 euros of rent in Paris. Whats the point? Also, Paris is a crime-ridden city that is way overpriced.

Exactly, there's a lot of cool stuff going on in Paris, but seriously it's underpaid for the price you have to pay to live there.

From where I live I could work in Paris with the same commute time than I do by working in Luxembourg, but I get a better paycheck.

Renting a 2 bedroom costs 700€ a month where I live, in Paris it would cost 2 to 3 times this.

I don't get the "there's not enough engineering available", this is just not true, reality is that people will earn a lot more in London, Luxembourg, Switzerland, so they chose that.

Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

#187

Post by Uberphallus » Mon, May 28, 2018, 9:16 AM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #183

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The truth is it is much much cheaper than in the US, and probably unmatched in Western Europe Business formation ( i.e. forming a legal entity, getting a bank account, hiring your first employee and getting paid for your first service) in France is much more expensive than in Britain, Luxembourg or Poland. And the U.S. is faster and cheaper still. That said, if you have the right connections, it can be a haven. The…

Can you form the company in e.g. Luxembourg and then operate in France? I feel that this is the sort of thing the Single Market was supposed to make easy.

France will force the hell out of you to open a branch in France. I have a company in Estonia and France is the only country that asks me to do such thing in the EU. Luckily I live in France, you'll need an address here, and have fun opening a business bank account with papers in, say, Estonian, or even English for that matter. Spent thousands in translations, whereas creating the company in Estonia was over the Internet and under 300 EUR. France will do all it can to drag you into its bureaucratic hell.

Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

#188

Post by skookumchuck » Mon, May 28, 2018, 9:18 AM UTC

erikb wrote: post #156

IanCal wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the "most abject poverty seen in the developed world" needs citing.

Funny how Americans get so shocked about it, while it is quite clear to the rest of the world. Honestly when I was visiting the US the first time, I was shocked how Second World everything was. Most people live in poor areas (of course most well off Americans don't travel to these part of towns so they don't see it). Many non-chain shops are struggling. Food prices are ridiculously high in comparison to the not that…

When I travel in Europe I see significantly higher prices for food than in the US.

Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

#189

Post by pjc50 » Mon, May 28, 2018, 9:18 AM UTC

chillidoor wrote: post #110

altharaz wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually we have two common cases which make it harder to work with contractor. 1. If your contractor has just you as a client for a long time, if you stop the mission he can sue you for « economical dependance » 2. The real estate market does not let you rent without a solid employee contract, making it very hard to independent contractors to find a house. The important market is not in contractors but rather in « c…

> If your contractor has just you as a client for a long time, if you stop the mission he can sue you for « economical dependance » Here in the UK, if your contractor works for you for a long time the government could argue that they're a "disguised employee". This a type of tax dodge, so they will come down on them like a ton of bricks, and might come after you as well. >The real estate market does not let you rent…

> making it very hard to independent contractors to find a house

This kind of thing is a subtle form of protectionism at the local level, IMO; it makes it hard for people to move about the country for work, let alone from outside.

This is before we get into the question of immigration rules with circular dependencies ..

Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

#190

Post by megalomanu » Mon, May 28, 2018, 9:19 AM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #82

lurena wrote: post #78

I'll go ahead and be 'that guy' and say it: I don't want my country to become a startup nation. I don't want management methods and labor laws to be reformed, or modernized, or to mimic those in the US. I don't want corporation-friendly tax rates to be enacted. I don't want regulations to be lifted. There are, give or take, 65 million people in France. (Incidentally, this number is also, give or take, the amount of A…

As an American, kudos for appreciating what keeps your country on solid footing, versus a culture that is essentially a lottery with more flash.

France is a combination between Philippe le Bel, Zinedine Zidane, Louis Renault, Serge Gainsbourg, Marcel Dassault, Jean Jaurès, Auguste Renoir, Blaise Pascal, Napoléon, Arthur Rimbaud, Charles de Gaulle, and so on. Current social rights are not more a part of french culture than anything else and I think most of the current conflicts come from the thinking than progress is acquired and a marxist point of view (which is very valid and important, but not the source of all answers). We tend to forget than France existed before 1945.