I can see those cuts in corporate tax being good to increase startup competition. Some of the other big remaining issues to see highly successful startups are salaries and lack of tech talent.<p>We could argue that startup salaries aren't the highest anyways, so if salary isn't too big of an issue if French startup can provide equity easily. It seems that when you exercise stock options in France, you don't need to pay tax on it until the options are actually sold[1][2], so that's a good thing for employee, no need to scratch your head with 83b elections and whatnot.<p>Regarding the lack of tech talent, there's still a lot to be done. France has incredible engineers, but those engineering schools are not focused enough on Computer Science, instead they excel in "old-school" engineering like Aerospace, Civil, Nuclear, ... . On the other hand, Free universities have Computer Science degrees, but they don't prepare the future graduates as much as the Engineering "Grandes Écoles" would in regard to core engineering knowledge. There are some attempts at schools focused more on Software Engineering, but I feel that they're more similar to longer bootcamps with a focus on projects, I think those who graduate such schools are trained to be good "monkey coders" (pardon the expression) but lack a growth-mindset.<p>[1] (in French) <a href="https://www.impots.gouv.fr/portail/particulier/questions/jai-des-stock-options-comment-est-impose-le-gain-levee-doptions" rel="nofollow">https://www.impots.gouv.fr/portail/particulier/questions/jai...</a><p>[2] (in French) <a href="https://www.impots.gouv.fr/portail/particulier/lactionnariat-salarie" rel="nofollow">https://www.impots.gouv.fr/portail/particulier/lactionnariat...</a>
A law passed in 2015 in France [0] that makes it mandatory, starting 1/1/2018, for any business (including "auto entrepreneur", what you have to register as to be a freelancer or such in France) to used "certified" software for accounting.<p>Is a tool like Excel, which the vast majority of small companies are currently using, certified? Of course not! You have to pay for special software like Ciel Devis (9 euros/month) or Ciel Compta (9 euros/month). The keen observer will notice that they're produced by the same company, whose former CEO had a stint at Intuit - another software company that is very good at manipulating legislation to push its own interests.<p>If you get audited and are not in conformity, you get a 7500 euro fine and 60 days to correct your situation.<p>But what if you are serving foreign clients, and use foreign software to produce invoices that fulfill local regulation? Or if you developed in house software to meet your very particular needs? Heh, sucks to be you, go give money to Ciel.<p>That being said, the law says that if you do your accounting without software, you don't fall under the regulation. So can you just do your accounting in Excel, copy it by hand, and show that when you get inspected? Who knows.<p>There are many, many cases like this of useless bureaucracy and regulation in France that make it a nightmare for anyone to start and run their own business. My friends who have been "auto entrepreneur" in the past have hated every minute of it, and most of them have moved to other countries. I'm French, likely to start a company in the next 5 years, and would never go back to France to do it.<p>The government doesn't really want to create an environment where small businesses can flourish - no one has the proper background to really get what factors contribute to that. What they want is to get the big bucks from venture capital flowing into the country so that they can boast about having a French Google or Airbnb or whatever, which is purely a vanity metric and not particularly constructive for the economy.<p>[0]: <a href="http://www.codial.fr/wp-content/uploads/BOI-TVA-DECLA-30-10-30-20160803.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.codial.fr/wp-content/uploads/BOI-TVA-DECLA-30-10-...</a>
Paradoxically, while Trump has accomplished very little but make speeches, the damage his presidency has done to our image, and perception of how welcoming America is, will be felt for years.<p>It's bringing back memories of our dismal global perception around 2006-2008. (Although this wasn't for "America is unwelcoming" reasons)
As an American living and working in France, this sounds like a scenario where France would love to have the results and benefits of a startup boom, but they don't want to take the necessary steps to enable it. Having a bunch of free money or easy visas are actually not what will cause a boom. France is notorious for never-ending paperwork and administration, and it's true. It's like trying to swim in molasses. You can do it. No one is "stopping" you. But eventually you just get too tired and give up, and go to the cafe and enjoy life. But hey, yeah let's make France attractive to startups and catch some of those taxes and world attention. But we don't want to change anything about our culture or regulations, so we can give give out a bunch of money, right? That will get people to flock here, make billion euro companies, and we'll reap the benefits. That's what it seems like to me.
The endowment of that venture fund (Viva Technology) will be around 10 billion euros. It has just been announced so the news hasn't come out in English media yet.<p>Here is a reputable source in French: <a href="https://www.lesechos.fr/tech-medias/hightech/030386245787-en-direct-viva-technology-2017-cest-parti-2094678.php" rel="nofollow">https://www.lesechos.fr/tech-medias/hightech/030386245787-en...</a>
French governments like to create all these grants and loopholes, but it doesn't mask the complexity and the hostility of french bureaucracy toward entrepreneurs. Don't be fooled by these PR stunts. If Macron really wants to change things he needs to start telling the tax office to stop treating every business owner as a de-facto fraudster and criminal.
As a French, I hope this will also bring large "big5-like" compagnies to open engineering offices in my country as well. I'm always a bit disappointed to see them have offices in London or Dublin but not here where we have a lot of engineering talent as well.