Live data from Hacker News

A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France

visa.lafrenchtech.com

301–310 of 751 posts

Re: A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France

#301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone from the UK, my main reason for not moving anywhere else in Europe is the language barrier. I'm not even sure I'm capable of learning another language; 5 years in school trying to learn French + German, and can still only put together about two sentences. From what I remember, no one else seemed to really pick up the languages either.

Language lessons in school could be the least effective way to learn a a language. If you are own the ground using it, it is amazing how fast you can learn.

Language lessons are good at giving you the grammatical foundation you need to become literate. I agree that they're pretty bad for fluency in spoken language. To be fair, though, language classes are usually 3-5 hours per week, and you won't become fluent if you move to France or somewhere and only spend 3-5 hours per week trying to speak the language.

Re: A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France

#302
post #17
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

massive... I am actually relocating to France in a few days. French lessons are very high on the list, as few people want to speak English day-to-day. The workplace might be different, and Paris might be different, but for the rest - French is a must. The second amendment of the french constitution reads "The language of the Republic is French" they take their language seriously.

Entirely depends on where you intend to live. You'll even be treated better (IMO) in Paris if you speak English as opposed to broken French.

My best French, accent and all, is Pardon, je ne comprend pas Francais. Parlais vous l'Anglais?

Re: A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France

#303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't a lot of people in France look at you badly if you only speak English? I read that this is especially true in more "proud French areas" like Paris etc.

Short answer: no. This may have been true at one point in time, but it's certainly no longer the case. I think this myth comes from a mix of two things: a) differences in intonation that some people (mostly Americans) interpret as aggressive or hostile, when really they're not b) the possibility that this was true in the past (e.g. during the 50's, perhaps because the French were eager to see stationed GIs leave)

> b) the possibility that this was true in the past (e.g. during the 50's, perhaps because the French were eager to see stationed GIs leave)

Or amybe, you know, because of the historical rivalry between France and England :)

Re: A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France

#304
post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm French and I agree with this. I left a long time ago. Add: - the absurd administration burden to do anything - the absurd prices of anything in Paris - the lack of consideration for anything that is not in Paris - the denial of your rights because there might be some terrorists No way, no reviens Leon.

What if I don't want to live in Paris? After all, there are other cities, yes?

Paris's relationship to France is something like NYC's to New York State.

Sure, Buffalo exists, but would you start a startup there?

Re: A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France

#306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had my Engineer's Degrees from ISEP last year and I'm working at Alten since October 2016. My official title is development engineer (Ingénieur d'études). Before that, I've done two six-months internship as a junior java dev. Alten is a technology and engineering consulting company, which means, in the context of the French market, that when a company, need a particular profile (like java dev) to staff a positio…

Sound like a temp agency, ala Accenture. Does it track market rates? I've worked for a company before that took fresh grads, and relied strongly on them never entering the market for themselves and realising what market rate was .

Yeah, like a temp agency, but we are full employees, which means we are still paid between contracts.

The problem is knowing the market rate.

Re: A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France

#307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In France, not necessarily Paris, or most large French cities. > French is the national language And what is the national language of Ireland?

In 2017 the national language of Ireland is, in practice , English, whatever their Constitution may say. In France it's absolutely still French. Many, many people do not speak English well enough to have a conversation. How is this analogy with Ireland even remotely relevant?

> How is this analogy with Ireland even remotely relevant?

the point is, what is 'official', and what is 'in practice' can differ. Quoting the official language of Ireland says nothing about what actually goes on.

Similarly, The the official language of France says nothing of how easy it is to speak English there, especially in large tech-hubs (the context of this conversation), nor how this might change in the future.

Re: A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France

#308
post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People making the kind of money being discussed here, such that you trigger higher bracket income taxes, have great health insurance in the US as well. Further, decent jobs in the US almost always include health insurance compensation above the salary. I have a brother that works in a pretty normal job earning $42,000 per year (not an outsized salary in the US), he pays $27 per month for his health insurance through…

>he pays $27 per month for his health insurance through his employer, and it's a nice plan. This is really an outlier. The US average for employee premiums is $104/month for individuals and $392/month for families.

US average? Anyway, all my coworkers pay 30 per person 60 per family on a popular health plan from a major insurance company.

Re: A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France

#309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think they're trying to market to an English speaking audience, as opposed to a French speaking audience? French is the national language, and you'll be required to speak it in order to have a normal life.

In France, not necessarily Paris, or most large French cities. > French is the national language And what is the national language of Ireland?

Irish is the national and first official language.

Oh, and some of us speak English too.

Why?

Re: A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France

#310

As someone who lives in Montreal, that's very strange to see. We import French talent by the hundreds because they are lacking interesting tech jobs over there.

The number of times I've heard, "We can't find developers" from people in my city is uncountable. Sometimes it's for companies where the word has gotten out about bad dev culture, others it's for boring me-too projects. Sometimes the two are hand-in-glove (bad culture -> 'safe' projects). Someone once told me that if a company has to hire from out of town, there may be a reason, and you should investigate. They may h…

We are lucky enough to have a quite a few of interesting tech. companies here in Montreal so you can easily find new work when you get tired or laid off! Retail business are starting to understand that having an e-commerce presence is important so everyone is hiring.
Post reply on HN