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Show HN: How to start a business in France

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

#51

Post by Majestic121 »

nakedrobot2 wrote: post #19

In Europe you can't fire employees. It makes it nearly impossible to run a startup. It is the very antithesis of running a startup. Unless you get lucky and can survive by hiring contractors, just forget about starting a startup in Europe. Source: 2 startups in Europe.

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.

If you want to fire someone after those 8 month, you indeed have to justify your decision (economical, huge mistake from the employee, common accord) and follow the process, but it's doable as long as you actually have a justification

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

#52

Post by hycaria »

nodefourtytwo wrote: post #9
JPLeRouzic wrote: post #3

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…

Why spreading FUD? Social security paid for 76% of all medical costs in 2014 (last numbers I could find). 92% of hospital bills 64% of doctors visits 62% of drugs, glasses and such. Most prescribed drugs by your doctor being reimbursed 100% you don't even have to pay at the pharmacy. http://www.vie-publique.fr/decouverte-institutions/protectio... You also have a very simplistic way of understanding how our retirement…

Is it really social security that pays for glasses ? They pay like 10 euros for a pair... Everything else is covered by private insurances. Except if you're worthy of CMU maybe ?

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

#53

Post by zhte415 »

This is useful and very smooth. Taking it for a test-run and as this is Show HN I'm not being picky, just some feedback.

On 'How much does it cost to hire?' https://mycompanyinfrance.fr/social-security

* I love that you can just choose one on the 4 input boxes and the others calculate. Lots of flexibility to let the user focus on what input they have and answer they want

* There's not an indication whether figures input are on a monthly basis, annual, or other. This affects the tax calculation: Entering 300, 3000, 30000 gets non-linear scaled results - major

* When re-clicking a field, previously entered digits need to be manually deleted rather than the field resetting - minor just my preference

* The breakdown of where contributions go lower down the page is great

* I'd input an existing French company that came to mind. Finding the 'This is not my company' link took a few minutes - minor

There is a fastidious amount of detail. You seem to have been very thorough e.g. bicycle allowance.

Does France also have tax, social insurance or benefit differences between cities/regions? Is it material? Is it worth the time/cost to manage?

On the reverse side, does France provide incentives regionally or based on city for starting companies?

For the above couple of questions, my context for asking:

I live in China and there's a lot of interest/very simple questions about tax that individuals and companies have. A handful of consultancies put online calculators for things like employment cost online and cover major cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, perhaps Hangzhou and similar) where social insurance contributions may vary.

They do this for free as a lead for their consultancy practices. They don't put calculators online for things like city- industry- specific incentives because this is a moving playing field with hundreds of cities moving incentive goalposts each month, it isn't practical to be accurate.

Are you looking for synergies with not only demystifying social security, but for example 'find an accountant' and 'find an office'. The potential for rabbit holes could be large, but also a very nice one-stop hosted CaaS (Company as a Service).

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

#54

Post by ldng »

realusername wrote: post #16
jypepin wrote: 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…

> you need to motivate your decision & respect the process.

And still you can fire someone. And now, with recent reforms, you know exactly how much it will cost since it is a fixed grid.

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

#55

Post by matt_the_bass »

One nice feature to consider adding is linking to the official French regulations for each item you explain in English. This would be helpful for someone like me who can read French but doesn’t know where to look. To me this would add a level of trust to your comments/Advice.

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

#56

Post by nodefourtytwo »

hycaria wrote: post #52
nodefourtytwo wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why spreading FUD? Social security paid for 76% of all medical costs in 2014 (last numbers I could find). 92% of hospital bills 64% of doctors visits 62% of drugs, glasses and such. Most prescribed drugs by your doctor being reimbursed 100% you don't even have to pay at the pharmacy. http://www.vie-publique.fr/decouverte-institutions/protectio... You also have a very simplistic way of understanding how our retirement…

Is it really social security that pays for glasses ? They pay like 10 euros for a pair... Everything else is covered by private insurances. Except if you're worthy of CMU maybe ?

Most prescribed drugs are reimbursed 100%.

Glasses, complicated dental procedures, insoles, ... are very little reimbursed.

The overall total (drugs+glasses and such) is 62% reimbursed by social security according to the article by vie-publique.fr

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

#57

Post by nodefourtytwo »

JPLeRouzic wrote: post #22
nodefourtytwo wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why spreading FUD? Social security paid for 76% of all medical costs in 2014 (last numbers I could find). 92% of hospital bills 64% of doctors visits 62% of drugs, glasses and such. Most prescribed drugs by your doctor being reimbursed 100% you don't even have to pay at the pharmacy. http://www.vie-publique.fr/decouverte-institutions/protectio... You also have a very simplistic way of understanding how our retirement…

> Most prescribed drugs by your doctor being reimbursed 100% you don't even have to pay at the pharmacy. Not paying at the pharmacy does not mean that you do not pay at all. You pay three times: Your employer pays for you a huge amount, you pay (look at your payroll), your mutual fund pays. Most people pay much more indirectly during their life than they receive services through the SS.

You just described how insurance works.

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

#58

Post by saiya-jin »

realusername wrote: post #47
saiya-jin wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 -…

They also created a calculator if you speak French: https://embauche.beta.gouv.fr/ . So the employer also pays the retirement, health insurance, unemployment benefits, work accidents and family benefits.

It's a big fat lie that employer pays anything - employee pays it all, from money employer is willing to pay him/her for work done. No matter how we wrap the facts, this won't change. It doesn't matter that its taken away before it reaches your account.

I understand the motivation - people would be properly pissed off if they realized state is taking 50-70% of their income prior to letting them get the rest. And then they are taxed more with VAT, housing, fuel etc. Of course there are services given back, in some cases very substantial and helpful (and in some cases very wasteful and useless), but never forget the fact that you pay for it with most of your income, like it or not.

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

#59

Post by saiya-jin »

baud147258 wrote: post #28
saiya-jin wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

What about using consultants, it might be easier to "hire/fire" them?

This is what I would expect, but in some places state tries hard to force self-employed consultants into permanent positions (not sure how France works in this regard). And if you mean external company consultants, they are not much cheaper.

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

#60

Post by hycaria »

nodefourtytwo wrote: post #56
hycaria wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really social security that pays for glasses ? They pay like 10 euros for a pair... Everything else is covered by private insurances. Except if you're worthy of CMU maybe ?

Most prescribed drugs are reimbursed 100%. Glasses, complicated dental procedures, insoles, ... are very little reimbursed. The overall total (drugs+glasses and such) is 62% reimbursed by social security according to the article by vie-publique.fr

>Most prescribed drugs are reimbursed 100%.

No, that's only for life threatening conditions.[0] You perceive that they are 100% reimbursed, but thats only thanks to private insurances, which are mandatory if you're employed by a firm, but up to you in other cases.

>Glasses, complicated dental procedures, insoles, ... are very little reimbursed.

Yes and it's often quite a surprise to end up paying for dentistry (which is rather expensive) when you already pay a lot for public + private insurances.

>The overall total (drugs+glasses and such) is 62% reimbursed by social security according to the article by vie-publique.fr

In total € I have no doubt. But SS still reimburses about 8 euros for a pair of glasses. That's not 62% of a glasses bill, and the 8 euros for all glass wearers in france do not account for 62% of the SS expenses. The drug reimbursement look that huge but that's only because some people are with lifelong, expensive treatments (1500€ per month for HIV for example) that are fully covered.

In real life, a little portion of people are benefiting from this coverage, and healthy people are prescribed 30% reimbursed medication for mundane affections (I looked up classic treatment for gastroenteritis). So you end up paying with your private insurance (if you took one, which is not guaranteed if you're freelancer for example), or even your own money if you need glasses or a new tooth.

I just want people not to have the wrong idea about how the system works. You're fully covered by society if you're very sick/very poor, that's true, but if you come in France to start a business you probably don't fall in either category and will end up paying a lot (social contributions + through your own money or your private insurance). And private insurance prices are rising 3% per year. Which is to be expected since social security are in the process of unreimbursing many drugs or acts, alas with no cost decrease.

[0]https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F21760

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