To me, the most important thing is that he's closing the "040" indicator used by the banks to index the entrepreneurs who previously failed.<p>It's virtually impossible to get help from a bank if your previous startup has failed. There's a bigger picture here. France is so incredibly intolerant of failure it's not funny. There's the rampant myth of the "genius superstar that never fails" and you only get one chance to prove yourself. It's no surprise that people will (generally, there are exceptions) prefer steady and safe employment in big corporations.<p>I think the best thing we can do for entrepreneurs is to encourage people to take risks and fail a few times. But this needs a major overhaul of the mentality in the country. I'm glad to see the government is taking a first step.
When French entrepreneurs move to Berlin and London to work on their companies you know you have a problem.<p>France's capital gain taxes are a real issue, and even the new, changed and improved rates will not do much to counteract this.<p>And that's just one of the things working against French entrepreneurs, the various employment laws don't help a whole lot either.<p>It would be fair to class France as start-up hostile at the present date, but the situation is improving. Which gives me all the more respect for those French entrepreneurs that succeed.
That is swell and everything. But why doesn't the president fix his crazy tax scheme, first. The pigeons have already left the roost and now he's set his aim further down the tax bracket.<p>Apologies, I just received a letter saying I owe the impots an additional 400€. For reasons I can't imagine since my salary hasn't appreciated that much. Entrepreneurship is hard enough already, the government taking more money doesn't make it any easier no matter how many visas they grant.
French startups. Bunch of pissy little whiners. They cry when nothing is done to help them, cry louder when something is done to help them. And the same people who spend so much energy bashing any government, left or right, cry like babies to get any state subsidies for their failed ideas. And they dare call themselves entrepreneurs. I wonder how do so many foreigners succeed to start their business in this country.
This is phenomenal news for France! After having married a French woman, lived in France and subsequently we moved back to the U.S., I realized how far behind France was in the entrepreneurial game when compared to the States. Yet, there are really brilliant people in France! These measures are definitely a step forward. I will be interested to see if they speak about it on Le Grand Journal this evening. Once we have children, we have thought about moving back to France because the education system is so good but, we have been very pessimistic about doing so because entrepreneurship is so looked down upon.<p>Unfortunately, I don’t think Hollande’s efforts are going to have too great an effect long-term. My experience has indicated that the French system is set up in such a way as to reward people who don’t take any risks. It is not simply the banking system or taxes that is to blame. There is a cultural stigma against taking risks that does not exist in the States. The education system is at least 100x better than the best schools in America, yet good test score count for very little when it comes to the hustle required in entrepreneurship, much less web based entrepreneurship where everyone is brilliant and hard working. There is simply not the same commitment to innovation. I often felt that I had made a faux pas when I lived in France and spoke about different business ideas at dinner or a party.<p>Unfortunately, politics is not the only problem holding the many brilliant people in France back from innovating and changing the world. In France, it is not culturally acceptable to want to be like Elon Musk.
Lots and lots of good things: more stable tax rules, reinforcing and stabilizing the JEI (which is a HUGE win, since it was changed every year...), right to fail, startup visa.<p>Also, creating incentive for big companies to work with startups is awesome. The bigcorp/startup link is almost non-existent here (compared to the US for instance). This one alone will help the ecosystem big time.
From a french guy : We are so late on this. imo, it's just an adjustment compare to other country (like US).<p>There is also a lot to do to change the mentality, because the crowd don't believe in "entrepreneurship" and prefer to work directly in big company.
The visa thing is nice. Simplifying capital gains tax is awesome.<p>I can't say that I'm a big fan of the tax breaks though. We shouldn't subsidize any business, they should fail or succeed on their own merits.
So sorry about some French habits : many of bad comments are made by French...
In fact, some French guy like French bashing, in public international place, but it doesn't sounds good for business isn't it ?<p>We have also great entrepreneur with great exits or great companies. And some of us are business ready and don't complain all the time. Such a shame nobody ear of them...
I remember hearing about France's 35-hour work-week (in the mid to late '90s I believe) and I'm curious if some of the Frenchmen here can tell us how eliminating that cap has affected the economy. Are people simply working more hours? Has unemployment gone up since a business needing X number of hours a week needs less workers? And most importantly, was that limiting the ability to create start-ups?
I have to check again, last time I called my lawyer, the tax on my income was 14% and the tax on an share sale would have been 42%, so I'm really in favor of having both at the same rate.
These measures are extremely favorable to entrepreneurship in France. They will help people to create companies, to develop them, and even to bounce back if they fail \o/
75% tax rate. He is a sociallist big time. He hates free market economy. Now confronting public outrage he puts some lipstick on a pig and it still doesn't look good as he doesn't get the markets.<p>75% tax rate, who is he kidding? Who wants to work for free for years on their startup and sacrifice their savings, their social life, sometimes their family, just to be hit by 75% tax at the end of the journey?<p>No thank you Hollande, but no thank you.
There is a reason for which there have been no big French or European company founded after WW2 (1945). The reason is called socialism. Think about it. BMW, Mercedes, Siemens, Loreal, Peugot, you name it! No Google from Europe, no Microsoft, no Oracle, or Tesla, or whatever. Not a <i>single</i> big company from the EU after 1945. Especially overregulated places like France.<p>I met a French clothes designer in New York recently. He told me he escaped Paris and France because he couldn't afford to open fashion house in Paris. He told me that just to open a fashion design shop in France he would need to pay 15,000 euros (about 20,000 USD) in fees in taxes to the Government. Just to obtain a few pieces of paper from the Government to be able to start the business. Just to open. No profit yet, doesn't know if it will work out or not, has no customers. Using his life savings or going into debt to start his own business and contribute to the society. Penalized to the point he said good bye. He escaped to the USA. Good job Hollande!