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Show HN: How to start a business in France

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31–40 of 69 posts

Re: Show HN: How to start a business in France

#31
post #14

Looking at the cost of hiring, it's crazy to see that the employee only gets ~50% (or even less as the salary grows) than what the employer pays. This makes it very expensive for an employer to pay their employees well, and explains very well why salaries are so low in France. Something else to note is also employment laws, which are way more strict in France and makes it either extremely expansive or just impossible…

That's because in France you get indirect salary as well whereas in other countries you have to pay some of those things from the indirect salary from your own pocket. To compare to a US salary, I would personally add 30 to 40% to those raw figures to reflect external costs. > Something else to note is also employment laws, which are way more strict in France and makes it either extremely expansive or just impossible…

> No it's not, first there's the trial period for permanent employees

The trial period go both way: the employee can choose to leave very easily. We had one such case where I'm working, the employee left before the 6-months period was finished.

In addition to firing, it exists legal possibilities to cancel the employee/employer contract if both side agree on it ("rupture conventionnelle"), if I've understood the mechanism.

Re: Show HN: How to start a business in France

#32
post #23

I'm slightly surprised to see that not only is this in English but there isn't even an obvious option to switch it to French. That's pretty un-French in the first place. It's interesting to read the SARL process and compare it with the UK one: https://www.gov.uk/limited-company-formation In the UK, not only is a company bank account not a prerequisite, it's the other way round - you form the company first. There's no…

“There's no requirement to notify a newspaper.”

:) what is this nonsense?

Re: Show HN: How to start a business in France

#33
post #23

I'm slightly surprised to see that not only is this in English but there isn't even an obvious option to switch it to French. That's pretty un-French in the first place. It's interesting to read the SARL process and compare it with the UK one: https://www.gov.uk/limited-company-formation In the UK, not only is a company bank account not a prerequisite, it's the other way round - you form the company first. There's no…

> The more I think about social security requirements, the more I think they should just be paid out of general taxation and not entangled with a particular relationship of "employment".

In France they are too, with the CSG and CRDS.

Re: Show HN: How to start a business in France

#34
post #14

Looking at the cost of hiring, it's crazy to see that the employee only gets ~50% (or even less as the salary grows) than what the employer pays. This makes it very expensive for an employer to pay their employees well, and explains very well why salaries are so low in France. Something else to note is also employment laws, which are way more strict in France and makes it either extremely expansive or just impossible…

That's because in France you get indirect salary as well whereas in other countries you have to pay some of those things from the indirect salary from your own pocket. To compare to a US salary, I would personally add 30 to 40% to those raw figures to reflect external costs. > Something else to note is also employment laws, which are way more strict in France and makes it either extremely expansive or just impossible…

There is no concept of indirect salary I am aware of. Do you mean that medical insurance is paid straight out of your salary to the state? This is a huge benefit to US, but only US - all european countries apart from Switzerland have this, and many other palces around the world too.

Or you mean social insurance? Same story, you pay it from the money your employer pays you, its just that you don't do it by yourself - company ha to do it for you by law.

Re: Show HN: How to start a business in France

#36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because in France you get indirect salary as well whereas in other countries you have to pay some of those things from the indirect salary from your own pocket. To compare to a US salary, I would personally add 30 to 40% to those raw figures to reflect external costs. > Something else to note is also employment laws, which are way more strict in France and makes it either extremely expansive or just impossible…

> No it's not, first there's the trial period for permanent employees The trial period go both way: the employee can choose to leave very easily. We had one such case where I'm working, the employee left before the 6-months period was finished. In addition to firing, it exists legal possibilities to cancel the employee/employer contract if both side agree on it ("rupture conventionnelle"), if I've understood the mech…

> The trial period go both way: the employee can choose to leave very easily. We had one such case where I'm working, the employee left before the 6-months period was finished.

Yes exactly, that's pretty fair, if the employer can fire at-will, the employee can leave quickly as well, it's flexibility on both sides.

> In addition to firing, it exists legal possibilities to cancel the employee/employer contract if both side agree on it ("rupture conventionnelle"), if I've understood the mechanism.

Yes indeed that's exactly that.

Re: Show HN: How to start a business in France

#37

I am French and I applaud at any initiative to help the part of the French economy not under the government control (circa 45%)! 1. But even if my browser is set to English, I see French on https://embauche.beta.gouv.fr/ and most of the issues on the Github repository are written in French! What signal do you want to send? 2. As one can find on " https://embauche.beta.gouv.fr/" the employee gets only half of what the…

I'm not sure what you mean by "deep pockets" of the "Sécurité Sociale" (is it "deep" in the sense that it's seen as bottomless, has a rather big deficit for parts of it, and it kinda assumed to be bailed out by taxpayer ; or "deep" because someone keeps the money ?) Also, we have to make one thing clear about the whole system in France, that's quite different from other places: your employer does not pay for your ret…

Thanks for this comment, it is well written and informative.

> and whether the current generation of worker will be able to get the same "generosity" from the next generation.

It does not work well even now as there are nearly as much retirees as employees. Only debt and the fact we are a huge economy in EU save us.

Re: Show HN: How to start a business in France

#39
post #7

I am French and I applaud at any initiative to help the part of the French economy not under the government control (circa 45%)! 1. But even if my browser is set to English, I see French on https://embauche.beta.gouv.fr/ and most of the issues on the Github repository are written in French! What signal do you want to send? 2. As one can find on " https://embauche.beta.gouv.fr/" the employee gets only half of what the…

> The "Social security" pays around of 10% of most usual costs, the mutual fund pays the rest... What? The basic insurance scheme pays at least 60% of a set of reasonable, negotiated fees and the "mutuelle" covers the rest. There are a few corner cases (complicated dental work, optics) but these are being addressed. Usually the out-of-pocket expense is minimal to nil (a "forfait moderateur" of around 1 euro per docto…

Please...

Have you had to pay for glasses, dentistry, hearing aids?

Even the current president acknowledges what I said (which is a fresh start)

Re: Show HN: How to start a business in France

#40
post #8

France is a fantastic country to start a company: very little things to pay until you actually make a profit, company creation process is easy, consequences for failure are very low to inexistant if you’re a startup. And the state is there to help you get all kind of loans by offering guarantees to the banks for you.

Firing people is ridiculously hard in France. I would say quite an important point in case startup experiences anything else but ideal logarithmic growth, actually even in that case (realizing somebody wasn't a great hire after trial period)

You can fire at will for the first 4 month, renewable once, so practically 8 month, for IT people.

It's plenty of time to determine whether someone is fit for a job or not.

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