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ParisIsBack – The Paris Tech Guide

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Re: ParisIsBack – The Paris Tech Guide

#81

Post by fermigier »

maximem wrote: post #36
hk__2 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The weather is awful, it rains 40% of the days. According to Wikipedia [1] it’s only 30% (650mm/year, while it’s 980mm/year in Bordeaux or 800mm/year in Nice [2]) > the random brasserie is an expensive tourist trap To be fair, a lot of “random brasseries” are pretty good, you can eat a good meal for €10 everywhere in the city. [1]: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climat_de_Paris [2]: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cli…

10€ meal in Paris! First Price in Brasseries start at 12 / 13€ for a decent main course.

You can have a nice pizza for 8-9€ these days in Paris, a really good crepe for 5-7€, tasty bo buns (vietnamese noodle dish) are usually less than 10€ in the asian neigbourhoods, etc.

Re: ParisIsBack – The Paris Tech Guide

#82

Post by madlag »

patrickaljord wrote: post #60
madlag wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, that's a great deal of french bashing in such a short comment. I agree that the immigration laws must be a real pain for some people. But for the rest, you must have been out of luck : - tax reduction schemes are a no brainer, you just have to justify once a year that you are doing something in relation with R&D, and there are too lots of ways to get some government grant to help start your business - french ent…

> that's a great deal of french bashing Can we stop with this? I'm tired of French people always responding to any kind of critics with the "French bashing" strawman. I'm French myself by the way. > and government grants are here too to help Most entrepreneurs don't want the government to help , they want the government to stay out of the way. A concept many of my fellow French have a hard time understanding the bene…

I can assure you that you will want the government to help, especially when you don't have any money to start your business. You should ask a few entrepreneurs about this.

Re: ParisIsBack – The Paris Tech Guide

#83

Post by [deleted] »

carlob wrote: post #10

There are a bunch of nice things to be said about Paris and the tax rebate system they put in place for startups and companies that spend heavily in R&D. However I think that Paris has a very low quality of life in most of the fields that are ignored in metrics: - Apartment prices are usually measure by the room when doing comparisons. In Paris the room count is misleading: I've seen studios smaller than 15 m^2 and 1…

[deleted]

Re: ParisIsBack – The Paris Tech Guide

#84

Post by Gmo »

jmnicolas wrote: post #40
alexjab wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've lived in Paris (and Lyon) for years, and here is what I have to say about that: - "Apartment quality is really really bad": no always true, like in any other major city (try NYC), - "The weather is awful, it rains 40% of the days": the same, - "food quality is abysmal": very true (only applies to restaurants, supermarket food is standard), - "Parisian being grumpy": fair enough, - "pretending not to speak Englis…

> "pretending not to speak English" It's not that they pretend, they really don't speak English ;-) More precisely they have some notions of English but 1) they won't understand a native and can only pick a few words 2) they're ashamed of their accent so they won't even try to speak 3) due to their poor lifestyle Parisians are (mostly) dicks and do not represent Frenchies in general. Don't get fooled by the French pe…

I have to agree with most of this (not Parisian, but French, going to Paris regularly)

Re: ParisIsBack – The Paris Tech Guide

#85

Post by moron4hire »

pm90 wrote: post #17

Do most Parisians speak English? Or will I be considered an outsider and Immediately ignored if I speak only English? The best thing about the Anglophone world is the language. I wouldn't mind learning a new language, but it takes time.

I don't know about France, but I have heard of such things before, for just about every European country. My wife and I just spent two weeks in Germany where I mostly started conversations in German and then let the other person transition to English when they heard my atrocious accent. Thankfully, my German is just good enough to get me through a full restaurant transaction, so it wasn't too much of a problem if they didn't switch over, but overall it seemed to work out quite well and everyone was very friendly to me. In contrast, we had some traveling companions who did not speak German at all, and some of the very same shop clerks, waiters, and strangers treated them much more coolly when they started with only English.

In general, I've always considered it polite to "show effort" to speak the local language, even if you end up speaking English in the long run. Whenever I travel to a new country, I try to learn enough to read a dinner menu and order a meal. While I'm certainly nowhere near to being fluent in that language, it's at least enough to be able to understand when the waiter is asking for a drink order versus appetizers or whatever, and then to be able to list the things we want with proper pronunciation and the count of each item, though not in a full sentence.

Re: ParisIsBack – The Paris Tech Guide

#86

Post by madlag »

Yoric wrote: post #64
madlag wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, that's a great deal of french bashing in such a short comment. I agree that the immigration laws must be a real pain for some people. But for the rest, you must have been out of luck : - tax reduction schemes are a no brainer, you just have to justify once a year that you are doing something in relation with R&D, and there are too lots of ways to get some government grant to help start your business - french ent…

> - tax reduction schemes are a no brainer, you just have to justify once a year that you are doing something in relation with R&D, and there are too lots of ways to get some government grant to help start your business Really? Have you spent time filing them? I have, and they were a big time waster for me. There is a way out, of course (i.e. pay some specialized company to file them for you). Agreed on the other poi…

Yes, of course, no paperwork at all would be perfect, you don't want to waste your time on anything but your job, but the benefits are really worth it. And to answer you, I had to do some reporting, yes.

Re: ParisIsBack – The Paris Tech Guide

#87

Post by Gmo »

weddpros wrote: post #41

That's the Good. There's also the Bad, and the Ugly. I've left France (I'm french), and now live in Malta, because of the Bad and the Ugly. France has high taxes (and 50% social contributions), very anti-entrepreneur and ultra-bureaucratic mindset, a sinking economy, a vastly anti-libertarian political landscape, and a high cost of living vs. quality of living. If you're tempted anyway, Good Luck.

cost of living vs quality of living : Frankly, this is true almost only for Paris.

I live in Nantes right now (after 7 years in the Netherlands) and the quality of living is great, at a fraction of the price in Paris.

Second, not everybody is a libertarian, so I'm quite OK with what you call "anti-libertarian landscape".

Bureaucratic mindset : Apart from Malta, have you ever lived anywhere else in Europe ? I don't know the bureaucratic mindset of Malta, but I can say that I did not find a great difference between France, the Netherlands and Germany for instance.

Re: ParisIsBack – The Paris Tech Guide

#88

Post by [deleted] »

pm90 wrote: post #17

Do most Parisians speak English? Or will I be considered an outsider and Immediately ignored if I speak only English? The best thing about the Anglophone world is the language. I wouldn't mind learning a new language, but it takes time.

[deleted]

Re: ParisIsBack – The Paris Tech Guide

#89

Post by tormeh »

Yoric wrote: post #68
tormeh wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you lived in Paris? Everyone I talk to tell me parisians* are dicks. I don't get how an entire city can be full of only arrogant bastards. Is that really the case? *or however it's written.

Just to clarify, "parisiennes" == "women of Paris". Is that what you had in mind when you wrote that comment?

No, my loose grasp-attempt at French is worse than I thought.

Re: ParisIsBack – The Paris Tech Guide

#90

Post by mcorrand »

sp4ke wrote: post #39

As a previous foreign entrepreneur who lived in Paris for 8 years here's my experience and my advice: In paris entrepreneurship is a VIP club for rich people who will rarely take real risk. Seed investment is next to impossible. The tax reduction schemes requires months of procedures and administrative paperwork. Real estate is almost as expensive as London. And the worst, if you're a foreigner you'll have a real har…

Most French people don't speak english. Younger generations do, but not very well. Hopefully, the average will rise to netherlands/scandinavian levels with time.

In professional settings, I think you would be hard pressed to find someone you cannot communicate with in english. It has been a requirement for most higher ed degrees for years now.

But come on, blasting a country because the average citizen doesn't speak your language well seems a little entitled in my book. If you're going anywhere to settle down (not for vacation), learning the local language should be high on your list.

Edit: no comment about your other points though. You actually have more experience dealing with them than I do.

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