How I got the French Tech Visa to start my company in France • Hacker News Board

Re: How I got the French Tech Visa to start my company in France

#131

Post by exhilaration » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 3:20 PM UTC

ttwy2020 wrote: post #42

victor106 wrote: post #34

From what a few of my colleagues told me: France is very racist. Apparently this is true in most of Europe. Everything looks okay on the surface but they are deep racial undertones. They tell me that believe it or not America is the one of the least racist countries. It does not mean there’s no racism in America just that it’s lesser. It’s easy for immigrants to assimilate into society in America than most places in…

As an immigrant who has been living in France (Paris) for 7 years, I didn't personally experience any racism, on the contrary, my collegues, neighbours and strangers, all treat me respectfully as I would treat them. On the other hand, my wife, being a Hijabi, did experience it in subtle ways (if we can call it racism): sometimes not-so-friendly gazes from strangers, she can not go to the public swimpool because burki…

I'm South Asian, grew up in Switzerland, live in the U.S. now and this is the same impression I have of non-UK European countries. Minorities aren't getting beaten up in the streets but there's silent racism in employment. What my mother tells me is that you'll never rise above a certain level in most companies, there's a glass ceiling keeping minorities out. Of course there are exceptions but they're rare.

Re: How I got the French Tech Visa to start my company in France

#132

Post by exhilaration » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 3:24 PM UTC

read_if_gay_ wrote: post #122

P-ala-din wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The underlying assumption is if you wear a hijab, you're not integrated. I honestly feel like this is just religious discrimation with extra steps.

But then your underlying assumption is that religion isn’t part of cultural integration. Why is religion separate from culture? I would say it’s a subset of culture.

What about your name? Do you have to give that up too to culturally integrate? I'm sure you've seen the articles about CVs rejected by French firms for having Jewish and Muslim names:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2015/11/2...

Re: How I got the French Tech Visa to start my company in France

#133

Post by AlchemistCamp » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 3:25 PM UTC

jcelerier wrote: post #128

AlchemistCamp wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, let's say you're bootstrapping a new business and earning 1500€/month as a solo operator with no employees. How much does the overhead of the endeavor cost you? The costs are minimal in every country I've worked in so far, but I know it's different in others. Would you at least be able to get started for under 500€ and live off of your income in France as long as you lived in a low cost area and didn't have famil…

> So, let's say you're bootstrapping a new business and earning 1500€/month as a solo operator with no employees. How much does the overhead of the endeavor cost you? If you are earning 1500€ per month you can just be a "micro-company" (this works up to 75k€ per year of gross income). You'll get taxed roughly 25% on that income, and have a fixed fee depending on the city you live - for me it's around 400€ / year for…

400€ / year is very doable! That bodes well for France's future bootstrapped entrepreneurs.

Re: How I got the French Tech Visa to start my company in France

#134

Post by read_if_gay_ » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 3:32 PM UTC

exhilaration wrote: post #132

read_if_gay_ wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then your underlying assumption is that religion isn’t part of cultural integration. Why is religion separate from culture? I would say it’s a subset of culture.

What about your name? Do you have to give that up too to culturally integrate? I'm sure you've seen the articles about CVs rejected by French firms for having Jewish and Muslim names: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2015/11/2...

That absolutely sucks, and does put the rejections in a bad light, but names don’t directly affect your behavior. Religion is different in that regard.

Re: How I got the French Tech Visa to start my company in France

#135

Post by balfirevic » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 3:33 PM UTC

ohgodplsno wrote: post #130

balfirevic wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> SpaceX _pretends_ it can lift 63 tons You can't be fucking serious. Falcon Heavy launched 6465 kg satellite to GTO, while landing all 3 boosters.

Yeah. 6400kg. 6.4 tons. Not 63. Nor the 26 they pretend they can do on GTO

Are you at all familiar with the payload scaling between different orbits and the payload penalty for reusability?

Re: How I got the French Tech Visa to start my company in France

#136

Post by mardifoufs » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 3:59 PM UTC

yodsanklai wrote: post #118

Uberphallus wrote: post #3

Honestly, this reads as those books titled "How to make money selling books on Amazon". Living in France, I can tell, France is very startup hostile. The amount of taxes a company has to pay and the amount of paperwork to do (or money to delegate it) is just absurd. The only way a small tech company can make any money and be sustainable (let alone grow) is having all employees as associates (with all the organization…

> The amount of taxes a company has to pay and the amount of paperwork to do (or money to delegate it) is just absurd. Whenever topics on France arise on HN, it's amusing to see many opinionated/politically biased comments from French people. I personally have no idea on how France compare with other countries as far as startup creation go, but I'd take with a pinch of salt any comments making very strong claims.

It's crazy to see how defensive some people get! Especially when any criticism of EU countries gets brought up. I get that some of the criticism is unwarranted. But as an outsider with intimitate knowledge of both europe (france in particular) and north america, it's just mind boggling to see the difference between the HN/online discourse and reality.

France is an amazing country don't get me wrong, but you can't just sweep everything under the rug just because it has good social safety nets. Living in a place with a strong french diaspora and having tons fo family members living in france, the things I hear the most from them are the grim employment prospects, the lack of opportunities and a hopelessly stagnant economy. And this was before COVID.

Lets also not forget the extreme levels of intergenerational, hard to escape destitution minorities living in the Cités experience that make even america look good when it comes to social mobility for it's minorities. And, while I'm not a fan of the (overused) concept, France has neocolonialism as a foundation of its exploitative african policy. There's also the rampant homophobia, ingrained misogyny, very, very casual racism... you get my point

There are even comments saying, unironically, "if you aren't happy just move instead of complaining". I couldn't imagine that type of argument not getting absolutely destroyed if it was a thread about the US, the UK or Canada. I guess we just hear a lot more coming from english speaking countries, which skew how we view countries we don't hear problems from.

Re: How I got the French Tech Visa to start my company in France

#137

Post by hegtor » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 4:02 PM UTC

ttwy2020 wrote: post #73

realusername wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (the reason was not always disclosed, but some recruiters did explicitly tell her that it was because of her Hijab). Which is different from the UK and other European countries from what I have been told. That's because the French culture does not work on the same basis as the UK and northern european countries. The french society strongly goes towards integration and not multiculturalism. It has a lot of deep cons…

> That's because the French culture does not work on the same basis as the UK and northern european countries. That's really interesting to know. I wish such labels (strong integration vs multiculturalism) were more explicit, like part of an "identity card" for countries. Do you know what the root of this cultural difference is? Historically, has it always been present?

France has a culture of "universalism" which dates back to the Lumières period which can be seen as one of the roots to this attitude.

This cultural tendency is very visible when you compare the way France handled colonies compared to the UK : France tended to impose its value to "enlighten" colonised countries, while the UK srayed much more in the realms of economic exploitation without getting so involved in trying to impose british culture and values.

Re: How I got the French Tech Visa to start my company in France

#138

Post by hegtor » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 4:08 PM UTC

tasogare wrote: post #46

victor106 wrote: post #34

From what a few of my colleagues told me: France is very racist. Apparently this is true in most of Europe. Everything looks okay on the surface but they are deep racial undertones. They tell me that believe it or not America is the one of the least racist countries. It does not mean there’s no racism in America just that it’s lesser. It’s easy for immigrants to assimilate into society in America than most places in…

> France is very racist Literally the biggest lie I read here for a long time. Yeah France is so racist that 20% of the population is of foreign non-white ancestry, nationality is easy to get (notably got automatic if botn on national soil), no welfare programs discriminates on nationality basis, illegal aliens are rarely expelled (being sentenced is not more automatic ground for it), there is laws forbidding critici…

France is not racist but the Front National is one of the most popular political parties, arriving second at the last elections. It is litterally an extreme right, openly racist party.

Re: How I got the French Tech Visa to start my company in France

#139

Post by krstf13 » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 4:22 PM UTC

AlchemistCamp wrote: post #133

jcelerier wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So, let's say you're bootstrapping a new business and earning 1500€/month as a solo operator with no employees. How much does the overhead of the endeavor cost you? If you are earning 1500€ per month you can just be a "micro-company" (this works up to 75k€ per year of gross income). You'll get taxed roughly 25% on that income, and have a fixed fee depending on the city you live - for me it's around 400€ / year for…

400€ / year is very doable! That bodes well for France's future bootstrapped entrepreneurs.

To add to what the parent wrote, depending on your situation (eg unemployment) when your creating your micro-company, you get a grace period (up to 2 years, I believe) during which your fees are substantially reduced. And the fees include social security, with (since recently) roughly the same benefits as regular employees (except for compensation of lost revenues in case of illness, which is more complicated).

Re: How I got the French Tech Visa to start my company in France

#140

Post by hbt » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 4:24 PM UTC

realusername wrote: post #53

victor106 wrote: post #34

From what a few of my colleagues told me: France is very racist. Apparently this is true in most of Europe. Everything looks okay on the surface but they are deep racial undertones. They tell me that believe it or not America is the one of the least racist countries. It does not mean there’s no racism in America just that it’s lesser. It’s easy for immigrants to assimilate into society in America than most places in…

I would say the opposite after done some traveling, it's honestly one of the best countries when it comes to racism. There are very very few countries in the world where you can just arrive there and be treated as local from day 1, even in Europe. It's just focused strongly on integration instead of being focused on multiculturalism like in the anglosphere. And you really need to understand that because US values don…

Yes, racism in Europe is due to nativism. It's not as bad as asian countries though.

Imagine if native americans were still around and you immigrated to the United States or Canada. Chances are the statues, official languages, culture (music etc.), food and mindset would be heavily influenced by the native american population.

Although English/French/Spanish might be accepted languages, it would be a constant fight and constant reminders that you kinda don't belong here and you have to "integrate" i.e give up parts of your culture and who you are.

I don't know if multiculturalism is better than integration; there are advantages to having a diverse society but also a cohesive high trust society.

However, in France and most of Europe, no matter how much you integrate you will never be "native". Or in French, "Francais de souche". Your skin color, your last name, your accent will stick out and you will be treated differently.

Again, not like in Asia where you might as well be a second/third class citizen. But enough, to make you feel like you don't belong and you're always a foreigner... no matter how much you "integrate".