Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Starting your first business in France? Here are the steps, and some great tips

colestreet.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 104 posts

Re: Starting your first business in France? Here are the steps, and some great tips

#81

Post by guylhem »

byroot wrote: post #72
guylhem wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> few French don't realize how awesome health care is in France And even fewer don't realize how good it can be in other countries too. Social security pays a percentage, the rest is up to you - you have a commercial insurance or a mutuelle. But some costs still are for your to pay. I work in healthcare. There are countries where in fact you don't have to pay at all. They have delay issues (try Quebec!) but if you ar…

> They have delay issues (try Quebec!) Yeah .. 2 or 3 weeks to get a appointent with a doctor, 6 to 8h at the emergency service at the hospital. I prefer to be sick in France than in Quebec. > There are already riots every 3 to 4 years, large scale ones. Come on ! There was 2005[0], and 2007[1] but that's all. Both were due to a police blunder (or at least a supposed one). Only civil security handled it. There was no…

You seems biased.

I'm PRAYING that there will not be a war, and that immigrants will find a way to feel happy in the society, and that the french society will welcome them.

This will require a lot of changes on both sides- but for now, only hate is growing.

I'm just very sorry I don't see that happening. I'm making predictions, hoping I'll be proved wrong.

Re: Starting your first business in France? Here are the steps, and some great tips

#82

Post by epsylon »

pilooch wrote: post #67
epsylon wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>last year at the same time a guy was shooting down schoolchildren and their teacher, because they were jewish. A once in decades terrorist incident. I could use the same argument to say that Oslo is orders of magnitude unsafer than Toulouse. Talk about anecdotal evidence...

I feel like adding another anecdotal fact: we're a startup in Toulouse and NY, and we love Toulouse, great city for both daily life and business (think Airbus etc...).

That's really cool ! I'd be curious to know more about the things you do, if you can speak about it here or mail me (info on my profile).

Re: Starting your first business in France? Here are the steps, and some great tips

#83

Post by guylhem »

wsc981 wrote: post #74
epsylon wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The FUD is strong in this post again. Please keep your political unargumented opinions for yourself. > all the immigrants can't find job and suddenly they accelerate the fall of the GDP (due to all the wellfare-state benefits that have to be paid). In 2009, of the 600 billion euros spent by the french government on welfare [1], 45% were allocated towards elder care, 35% towards general health care, 10% towards family…

Perhaps some of his post might not be completely true, but I expect much the same. Recently I read that unemployment in France has risen to 15%. More unemployment means more people have little money to spend. Because of less spending, there will be reduced export from Northern-Europe countries to Southern-Europe countries. As a result unemployment in Northern-Europe will rise as well. If the situation stays like this…

Apparently we share the same analysis. No hate, just plain facts.

Europe seems up for a very nasty situation indeed. The nobel peace price for the EU was to remind Europe that in the past they had been at war every 40 years or so, but since 1980 they had stopped that bad habit (let's ignore the balkans)

Maybe Europe will see the light? I hope so, but I don't see that happening at the moment.

Re: Starting your first business in France? Here are the steps, and some great tips

#84

Post by guylhem »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #78
guylhem wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the single most insightful comment in this thread. That's close to what the Economist said on that issue - the socialists have the political power to make such reports. These are centrist reforms - partly libertarian, partly social, but given the current status of France they are among the only possible solutions. Regarding immigration, it's not a problem when it's selected immigration like some country do -…

>Immigration is a problem if you are welcoming workers with little education, who come from social or religious group who holds their beliefs are superior and better than anyone else's, and are more likely to develop hatred towards the host country and grow that hate when they are forced into a social net they have no hope of escaping - and that'll also be forced on their kids due to racism etc. Are you quoting Rush…

If Isreal will take you if you are Jewish, that seems selective. It doesn't seem to be than >50% of the Iranian population is Jewish.

Maybe it means they will welcome people less "likely to develop hatred towards the host country" because of their preexisting beliefs and religion?

Re: Starting your first business in France? Here are the steps, and some great tips

#85

Post by ckarmann »

guylhem wrote: post #69
ckarmann wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the problem in France is the dire state of the political discourse, full of empty diatribes and finger-pointing that prevent focus on real, practical problems with painful solutions. Sadly your commentary is an example of this. Immigration is not a problem to the welfare state (it has been shown that new immigrants pay off for what they obtain) and socialists are not the only culprits when the welfare state yo…

This is the single most insightful comment in this thread. That's close to what the Economist said on that issue - the socialists have the political power to make such reports. These are centrist reforms - partly libertarian, partly social, but given the current status of France they are among the only possible solutions. Regarding immigration, it's not a problem when it's selected immigration like some country do -…

Well, fortunately there is no country that is to France what Iran is to Israel. Or is it? :)

A good part of the economic immigration today is from Africa, and they are a bit more educated and far more hard-working than one could believe (being a doctor in some African places is really not easy and you earn more washing a rich white man's dirty clothes). The problem with immigration in France seems more to have with second and third generations: kids born in France but that are not integrated in the society. They seem completely lost and without future and a lot of them evolve badly to either crime or religious extremism. If I had to point fingers, I would give a shared responsibility between public policies that have done nothing to integrate them (with school in suburbs filled with inexperienced teachers for example), racial prejudice and a lack of culture from the uneducated parents that are unable to show a good path to their kids.

Selective immigration is not so easy. If they really want to, people will come, eventually. If you put hurdles in their path, you only make their integration more difficult. Speaking of the Canadian example, I am in Canada right now, and my wife being a recruiter for a call center, she hires a lot of smart immigrants who actually hold the equivalent of a Master or even a PhD. Their diploma was given in France or another European country, but it is not recognized in Canada (it is often the case for medical professions which are very locked up in Quebec). Now these doctors and researchers call people to sell them washing machines or baby diapers. That's a waste.

Update: speaking of my wife and immigration, she is Romanian and had a lot of trouble finding a job in France, due to all the restrictions that Romanian nationals still suffer when they want to access the job market, and also her uncommon education path (she hold business degree from Romania and psychology degree for German university, which is great anywhere except in France when the culture of education is favoring people coming from one of the few elitist schools). One of our main reason to move to Canada was our bet that it would be easier for her there, Canadian being more open to people like her. It proved right, and she got jobs very easily. That's a huge loss for France, because she is a very smart woman! :)

Re: Starting your first business in France? Here are the steps, and some great tips

#86

Post by estebank »

rodelrod wrote: post #68
guylhem wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don't forget that should you succeed you'd be regarded with jalousy and hatred. While the rest of your article may have some exaggerations, that's true and that's what is shaping my decision. I can live with some insecurity, I can live with deadbeat companies trying to avoid paying their bills and laws preventing me from hiring - I'll just go solo and focus on foreign clients. But if on top of that I'm hated and di…

I live there, just next to the train station that you describe as being in a war state, and while there are worrying incidents in the outskirts and suspicious neighbourhoods, center Paris is by far the safest city I've ever lived in, and the only one where my women friends feel safe enough to walk alone at 3am. If we're playing the anedoctal evidence game, the only place I was ever seriously threatened ("I will kill…

I'm wondering where else you have lived, just to correctly frame your comment.

Re: Starting your first business in France? Here are the steps, and some great tips

#88

Post by seanmcdirmid »

guylhem wrote: post #84
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Immigration is a problem if you are welcoming workers with little education, who come from social or religious group who holds their beliefs are superior and better than anyone else's, and are more likely to develop hatred towards the host country and grow that hate when they are forced into a social net they have no hope of escaping - and that'll also be forced on their kids due to racism etc. Are you quoting Rush…

If Isreal will take you if you are Jewish, that seems selective. It doesn't seem to be than >50% of the Iranian population is Jewish. Maybe it means they will welcome people less "likely to develop hatred towards the host country" because of their preexisting beliefs and religion?

I was just pointing put that your statement on Iran was obviously false.

I never understood why France had such a hard time with muslim immigrants when they seem to completely integrate in the states within one generation. I'm sure it has to do more with the differences between Americans and French then...the immigrants themselves.

Re: Starting your first business in France? Here are the steps, and some great tips

#89

Post by estebank »

guylhem wrote: post #62
rdtsc wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you thoughts, or maybe anyone else's on South America? Argentina, Chile, or Brazil?

Honestly my 1st choice : Canada : close to the US, business friendly especially in provinces like AB. Then in fact in my 2nd choice : South America. Chile +++ but I've never been there. I considered spending some time to check for myself if for some reason I don't follow my 1st choice. I considered Uruguay too. Both seem like good place to start a business, at least just as good as Europe in my line of work. I'm just…

Argentina: it's going down in flames at an alarming pace, but has been doing so for the past decade. Every ten years there is an Earth shattering crisis in the country, and there has been a 25-30% inflation for the past 4 years, likely to grow. There is a pararel market for US dollars, as it is controlled and it's almost impossible to buy legally (unless you are travelling overseas, 60 USD per day with a top of 1000 USD per trip, 2 trip max per year).

If you have international clients, you'll get ARS at the official rate (5 ARS == 1 USD) but will have to pay international providers with the parallel rate (8 ARS == 1 USD). That alone, coupled with rising insecurity, blocked imports and unpredictable government, makes starting a company there a very unsound decision.

The good things about it is that you have relatively cheap workforce (30000 USD will pay a good engineer), there are many good engineers, it's in roughly the same timezone as the US (GMT-3) and culturally is much more similar to the US than, for example, India.

Having said all of the above, I've moved to the Netherlands, and couldn't be happier so far. I've been in Silicon Valley for about 3 months total, and Amsterdam is as safe as Mountain View is, but without the heavy police presence and you can actually walk anywhere (the city feels like a town in that regard). The only downside is that I'm earning about half what I'd be earning in the USA.

I've been to Paris, and although it didn't seem unsafe, the military in the streets did freak me out.

Re: Starting your first business in France? Here are the steps, and some great tips

#90

Post by arrrg »

gadders wrote: post #79
arrrg wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free trade agreements do not create common markets. (Well, they can, but if they do they include some sort of harmonization of relevant laws). Plus, the UK already excludes itself from practically all non-common-market activities of the EU. They aren't participating there anyway. I also think you are confused about what creating a common market entails. It necessitates common political decisions. The common sticking…

So if the laws that are raised relate only to trade and free movement, then fine. However, what about rules such as the maximum working time directive? Or limiting banker bonuses? Those are examples of a non-trade related laws that are imposed on the UK. The goal of the EU isn't free trade, it is political union.

The goal is not free trade, the goal is a common market. Is that really so hard to understand? Of course, labor regulations play a role there.
Post reply on HN