Oh, also, don't forget that we have a few "minor" companies represented in France, such as Mozilla, Microsoft R&D, Apple R&D, Google R&D, IBM R&D, Intel R&D, etc. all of them involved in some extent in the French startup ecosystem.<p>For instance, Mozilla (where I work) hosts events with startups, has its own accelerator for startups, and provides some mentorship. Of course, that's for startups that aim for open source, open web, open government, privacy, or any other form of greater good.
This sounds better than French government propaganda. Don't listen to this guy. France has great food, wine and architecture, I know that, I live here in Paris. But it's a hell hole if you're an entrepreneur, taxes are killing (+60%), investors get most of their money taken away, the State is bordering on insanity, social security doesn't reimburse much anymore and yet you're forced to pay for it+a private insurance and firing people is extremely costly, you can end up paying someone for years even though he's not doing anything anymore. And you can get sued for firing someone and the judge will side by default with the employee, most judges here are communists/far left to begin with or at least socialist if you wish.<p>Also, here, 99% of people are statists. Every political debates revolve around this: "how can the state fix our problems and pay our bills". Depressing. Recently, many entrepreneurs decided to go on strike and stop paying some of their unfair taxes, Atlas Shrugged is literally happening here, all the richest have left, many entrepreneurs have left, many who stayed are going on strike. You know something is wrong with a country when Ayn Rand's exaggerated prophecies are becoming a reality. Anyway. Just my two cents.<p>Edit: Dear fellow French. Please argue, don't just downvote and call BS.
"Ok, Paris will never compete with San Francisco"<p>Not so sure about that. Never is a very long word. I bet Paris can compete with San Francisco on tech before San Francisco can compete on charm.
> Plus, French engineers compensations are half US engineers compensations in average.<p>Hmm... yeah, how is that a good thing?
There's also that common thing where startups hire interns and ask for the knowledge of a very specific stack, 10 different skills, bachelor's degree level and offer 600e/month (min. is 436.05e which makes it 2.875e per hour -- if your internship is longer than two months, 0 if shorter) because "oh yeah, you're an intern, you're here to learn. plus we're a start up, we don't have any money".<p>I love working at startups but sometimes their offers are a fucking joke around here.<p>I know internships shouldn't be done for the money, I've already done some 436.05e/month ones, don't worry about that.
I really like the point this story is making, but I've really not seen much "France Bashing" going around lately. Did I miss anything?<p>Additionally, the points made seem to apply to a large extent to many European countries. Which is a good thing, of course.
$5000 to incorporate in the US? I paid $80. Also, they're talking about how it is "easy" to fire people... if you give them 3 months of notice? Craziness.