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Welcoming Tech Talent from Around the World to France
- dna_polymerase 9y agoYeah flee from the right-wing nightmare that is the U.S. right now to join a nation with the exact same problems and that speaks a different language after all (oh and it is france, they'll let you know that you are american scum to them) This pathetic try to cash in on the whole Trump situation is disgusting. If you want to to relocate to Europe try Berlin or Stockholm.
- hluska 9y agoI don't understand this kind of negativity and frankly, this is an incredibly weak comment because of it.
- dna_polymerase 9y agoSo negative comments are weak comments? If you like your information sugar coated that's fine but I prefer my discussion open and honest after all.
- sametmax 9y agoI'm highly critical of france but your comment comes out agressive and have zero informations in it.
- hluska 9y agoNo, negative comments with backup and other information are incredibly valuable. Moreso when the topic is something as difficult (and potentially foolish) as moving to a foreign country. Negative comments with absolutely no further information don't add anything more to the conversation, and they have the potential to create paranoia where none should be.
- pasbesoin 9y agoI'm considering fleeing to someplace where I am assured health care. If I continue to work solo, I don't need to worry about hours caps and all the rest. Hell, maybe I'll be able to relax and "have a life", for a change.
- dna_polymerase 9y agoTry Germany then, free healthcare and still a better wealth distribution than France has so you won't have to watch out for bad neighbourhoods like every other Arrondissement in Paris.
- mistermumble 9y agoI have many pleasant memories of living in France many years ago: great food, strong respect for ideas, great ambiance. And, no, I did not speak French and never encountered any bias from the Parisians, despite my California way of speaking. Berlin and Stockholm sound good too, have never been. But I would respond first to the nation that is proactively reaching out. I don't view it as "cashing in on the Trump situation" as much as throwing a lifeline to those of us who are drowning in a sea of hate and anti-science.
- dna_polymerase 9y agoYou won't really find a nation right now that is anti-science. If France would care about science it would try to fix their school system to produce more scientist. But instead they prefer to lure people in their mess of a nation.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- devnonymous 9y agoUmm, I think it is not aimed at only people from the US who want to migrate but also to potential talent who were considering the US as an option for investment or as the next step in their careers. Yeah there is a big PR spin to the whole thing but can you really fault the French for using the same approach the US did? Isn't that what the US did all those years when it sold the idea of the American Dream, which in reality isn't all that it was cracked out to be?
- dna_polymerase 9y agoOnly people from the U.S. would consider joining a failing state like France to escape their situation.
- bsder 9y agoA moron as the chief leader of the country is not something that France shares with the US. In addition, I don't see a huge number of elected representatives of France colluding with one of their chief enemies. France has it's issues; however, their leadership is significantly better than the US, at the moment.
- Mikeb85 9y agoMacron basically just re-branded the socialist party, which wasn't exactly popular. And while his optics may be better than Le Pen, Trump or whoever, France still has deep economic and social problems, and a continuation of the status quo is unlikely to change that.
- elygre 9y agoMy French friends would choke over that statement. To themm Macron is fairly right wing, with little connection to the socialist party. Of course, with the way the election system works, once you were in the final round, it was macron or the devil, and most socialists went with macron,
- Mikeb85 9y agoHow is he right wing? He was the economy minister for Hollande...
- Animats 9y agoThere has been a very strong dynamic over the past few years around France’s 10,000 startups. Any info on the success rate?
- jedmeyers 9y agoYet only 70 companies are allowed to hire talent based on the visa rules.
- raitom 9y agoOut of those 70 companies, how many have job offers in english?
- sametmax 9y agoThis is PR. Innovation in France in the start up space is stale. Our talents usually go to somewhere else because you get 3 times the pay and much more exciting projects. Projects here are usually quite classical. Investors are shy with money. People from both sides reject risks, and hence the chance of a big success. They want the unicorns for cheap, without having to go find it in the forest and care for it. The administrative burden, the taxes and the terrible situation with hiring give the last blow. France is a terrible place for start ups. We got some. But given the great talent pool we have, I find the quantity and quality pitiful. We have good people here, smart ones, efficient ones, nice onces. And we waste so many opportunities.
- devnonymous 9y agoFor those who are seriously considering moving to a European nation for work purposes, you might want to also look up the EU blue card scheme[1] which is most likely more flexible than this for employees (no idea of equivalent for founders and investors). [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Card_(European_Union) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Card_(European_Union)
- hluska 9y agoEdit - it turns out that the link I put here is actually for a private company. I haven't had any luck finding a more official link for information. If you can help, I'll update this.
- germanier 9y agoNote that this is (one of many) websites made by private companies that try to appear as official as they can without being (and collect some "fees" on the way). I would be extremely surprised if there were actual employers on that site or if they would actually provide a useful service regarding the real application.
- hluska 9y agoOoops, I'm an idiot! Thanks very much for telling me (and giving me the chance to correct my error).
- germanier 9y agoThe EU site is at http://ec.europa.eu/immigration/bluecard_en http://ec.europa.eu/immigration/bluecard_en but as the thing is issued by the member states each country has their own website with information. For example, Germany (which issues about 85% of all Blue Cards) has some information here: http://www.bamf.de/EN/Migration/Arbeiten/BuergerDrittstaat/BlaueKarte/blaue-karte-node.html http://www.bamf.de/EN/Migration/Arbeiten/BuergerDrittstaat/B...
- seiferteric 9y agoWow you have to have a graduate degree to even be an eligible employee, never mind.
- pjmlp 9y agoAs it should be. We don't have people calling themselves engineers just because can type a few lines of code.
- SamReidHughes 9y agoLol. Having a master's is negatively correlated with developer quality in many people's experience.
- jjeaff 9y agoI know it's not always accurate. But when I am looking at a resume of someone who has a master's in CS, I think either programming was an afterthought for them or, if they had been learning to code all this time, why didn't they go out and get a job long before they had time to finish a masters?
- sametmax 9y agoThe best developper I know didn't even finished school. I train every month plenty of terrible devs for a living. They all have better formal education than I, yet I'm paid 5 times their salary to teach them how to do their job. The education system should be giving you clues on who you should hire. But it doesn't fulfill its mission at all.
- GordonS 9y agoI'm a self taught dev with 15+ years' experience. I only got a degree a few years ago (did it while working). Honestly, I learned exactly nothing useful that I didn't already know. I do a lot of hiring and, in my experience, having a degree (or indeed the class/score of said degree) has no relation to the real-world abilities of candidates.
- samfisher83 9y agoWill they pay as good as the Us? That is going to be the biggest motivator in my opinion.
- raitom 9y agoNo, around 40k€ / year, before taxes.
- foepys 9y agoYou cannot directly compare a San Francisco salary to a French/Western European salary. Healthcare, benefits, rent, etc. are completely different.
- richardknop 9y agoYou can compare contracting in London/Zurich/other financial centre. There you can get on par with SF salaries as contractor. Btw, rent in London is about the same as SF or slightly higher. So even with benefits included it's a worse deal. I don't know what the situation with renting is like in Paris but given how low salaries are rent would have to be much lower compared to London in order for it to make sense to work there instead.
- user5994461 9y agoParis: Rent is 1000 to 1500 € a month for a 1 bedroom. Add the utilities and council tax on top. That's tough considering a typical salary of 40k/year is about 2k/month after all taxes.
- richardknop 9y agoYeah. In London I pay £1800 for 1 bedroom in zone 1. But at least you can make £120k per year here as contractor so it's manageable. What's the contracting market like in Paris?
- anonyfox 9y agoAt this point it seems that many Europe nations are more "free" than the US. Now with same-sex marriage getting legal in germany the probably last big issue is resolved. You will not get extreme high salaries like in the US, but there is stuff like free higher education and getting serious medical care won't be expensive at all. Also remember that the EU has a higher population than the US with very diverse countries to explore just a few hours apart, all rich of culture and stuff that is over thousand years old. Oh, and of course we don't have Trump. :D
- dna_polymerase 9y agoThey might get higher numbers, but they are paid in Dollar which is less worth than Euro, also everything is more expensive there than it is here, especially rent and food.
- weberc2 9y agoRent is far cheaper in the U.S. My last apartment was $450/month for 600 sq ft in a good neighborhood. I paid $650 for less than half of that in rural France. Food is probably cheaper too, though not as dramatically. I'm sure there are lots of perks to living in Europe, but rent is not among them.
- dna_polymerase 9y ago> Rent Prices in Germany are 29.77% lower than in United States https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_countries_result.jsp?country1=United+States&country2=Germany https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_countries_resu...
- weberc2 9y agoThose figures don't normalize for apartment size. The "cost to buy" figures do, however, and they show the US costing less than half the price in Germany.
- romwell 9y ago
- zura 9y agoNo mention of self-employed/freelancers/consultants.
- notadoc 9y agoThis seems sort of like the kind of visa system the USA would advertise to attract a particular talented group, does it not? The founder visa looks quite friendly and easy, but it's four years. What happens after that? And what if the startup fails, does the founder have to leave France? I also wonder how appealing these international visa programs will be in light of the changing US immigration and visa system. Will the USA lose out on talent? Will the USA lose on half of the next generation of billion dollar+ startups? Assuming the past trend mentioned in WSJ persists, anyway https://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2016/03/17/study-immigrants-founded-51-of-u-s-billion-dollar-startups/ https://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2016/03/17/study-immigrants-fou...
- pcurve 9y ago"The founder visa looks quite friendly and easy, but it's four years. What happens after that? And what if the startup fails, does the founder have to leave France?" I think that ambiguity is by design, to attract certain type of demographics for people falling under the employees and founders groups. (i.e. young, unattached, adventurous) For people falling into the investor group, I seriously doubt getting visa renewed after 4 year will be an issue as long as they are willing to bring in additional capital.
- tom_mellior 9y ago> it's four years. What happens after that? It says right there on the page that it's renewable. Also, if you are in the country legally for four years, and you work and pay taxes, it should be easy to get some other kind of permanent residence permit. After one more year, you can even apply for citizenship.
- sgroppino 9y agoIt will be interesting to see how French engineers and computer scientists see this type of visa. The perhaps equivalent H1B visa in the US is or was obviously a big plus in certain areas but was lately perceived as an abuse channel to get cheap labour to replace the locals. Hopefully this scheme won't be abused...
- kakwa_ 9y ago1) As far as I know, this is only communication stunt. There was no new legislation that eases immigration, it falls in the current set of laws and regulations that didn't seem to cause major issues for now (at least for engineering jobs). 2) At least on the posted website, there isn't any big SS2I/ESN (Societe de Service en Ingenerie Informatique/Entreprise de service du numerique, aka meat renters, like Capgemini, Atos, Sopra-Steria...) or big employers (like Thales, Snecma, Airbus...) in the list. The list seems kind of legit as it seems to be constituted only of small start-ups.
- nraynaud 9y agoFrench cheap labor is in Northern Africa (for french-speaking employees) and in Eastern Europe (for EU nationals), not in the US.
- expertentipp 9y agoJust a friendly reminder: as of today there has been a state of emergency in France for over a year now. We are talking about situation with regular army with full automatic assault weapons on the streets and police authorized to enter apartments without court order.
- sametmax 9y agoYes. It was a temporary measure that as been prolonged more and more. It's rather concerning, but what's worst is that the population really doesn't see the problem with it. If anything goes in the direction away from freedom with a security label attached to it, everybody will follow happily. This is the receipe for a new dictatorship. But of course if you say that you are crazy because there is no way our country would do that ever. We are so clever. Better than the rest of the world. And history's lesson don't apply to us.
- stevenwoo 9y agoHad to work in England in the 90's for a week and the bus on the route I used was blown up two hours after I got off by the IRA. All the London landmarks were patrolled by army soldiers with rifles. Everyone can get used to almost any circumstance, the odds of being a victim of a terror attack are miniscule. I'm much more likely to get hit by a drunk driver in the USA.
- expertentipp 9y agoI refuse to accept the "you are more likely to die in a road accident" argument. Simply refuse. Ironically the terrorist attack in Berlin last December was initially categorized as a road accident.
- newintellectual 9y agoHaha. I guess not ones who want to get rich from their work. "High-net-worth individuals, however, fled France last year in greater numbers than any other country. An estimated 12,000 millionaires left France last year, versus 10,000 in 2015, a gain of 20%, [...]" http://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-country-is-no-1-for-millionaire-migrants-and-its-not-the-us-2017-02-27 http://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-country-is-no-1-for-mi...
- corford 9y agoIt looks great on paper but the devil will be in the detail and how well they execute on the admin/bureaucracy side. If my experience a few years ago with the auto entrepreneur scheme and URSAFF are anything to go by, you'll need a lot of patience, the ability to speak half decent French and a sense of humour if you want to avoid ripping all your hair out :) I love France (have even married one of their citizens!) but this is a country where in 2013 we moved from one department to another and had to close our bank accounts with the branches in the first department and open new ones in the second department because there was no way to migrate accounts between branches of the same bank o_O We literally had to post cheques to a friend in the old department so he could deposit them while we waited for the old accounts to be closed and new ones opened (complete with different cards, chequebooks, account numbers - the works). Why did we need to migrate accounts? Because you could only deposit cheques in the same department as your local branch. Why were we depositing cheques?! Because half of France (including my fiancées' employer at the time) still uses them for everything (which is also great fun if you're in a rush in Super-U and the person in front decides to pay with one). Having said all of that, France is awesome despite its flaws and there are lots of reasons to be hopeful with Macron now piloting the ship.
- wanghq 9y agoSounds like there are lots of opportunities...for startups, to improve these areas.
- ptero 9y agoStartups do well when they improve things for people who vote with their wallets (buying this or that service). Bureaucracies though are a completely different beast. Better value? Happier customers? They care not a bit. You need different levers to (sloooowly) move them.
- apatters 9y agoWhat are those levers? Are you aware of any examples where an effort to move them was successful?
- jgh 9y agoI've been working on relocating to France, and while I'm very excited to do it it's been frustrating to try to get information about this program. People don't seem to know what documentation is required, and replies come after weeks (if ever) from government bodies.
- wuxmedia 9y agoSounds pretty French. Source: lived there for 8 years
- wott 9y ago> I paid $650 for less than half of [600 sq ft] in rural France. No way. Or you came with a baseball hat saying "I am a rich Yankee, please swindle me" on the front and "I like to pay twice the regular price" on the back.
- weberc2 9y agoI was near Bruz in 2012 and there rent was something like 450 Euros. Even if I overpayed by 100%, the market is still less expensive in the U.S.
- dang 9y agoTurning that into a national slur is gross and against the spirit of this site. Please don't post anything like this again. The HN community crosses many international divides and basic mutual respect is a sine qua non of commenting here. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14684465 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14684465 and marked it off-topic.
- weberc2 9y agoSpeaking of Yankees and baseball hats, what is with the French and Yankee ball caps? I see them all over and never any other team. I always expect them to be Americans but they rarely are. Also I vouched for this submission after it was flagged. I don't believe you meant Yankee as a slur, and even if you did, I have better things to do today than be offended.
- palunon 9y agoYou may also see LA teams, but less often. I think it is because the logo looks cool, and american stuff is "cool". It's rarely a support of the team, and some people don't even know it is a team logo...
- weberc2 9y agoThat was the impression I got. It seemed more like a brand sort of thing.
- geodel 9y agoSo Euro 300K for 4 years. It doesn't look like good deal compare to USD 1 million for permanent residency.
- magnusdeus123 9y agoI've been looking forward to more details about this program emerging seeing that I'm a french-speaking francophile who recently made a transition to a career in programming. The minimum education requirement being a Master's degree is quite disappointing. I fear they are making the same mistake as Japan when the latter introduced their points-based immigration system that requires you to be fluent in Japanese with a Master's degree and published research, making far above the salary any Japanese worker would make in the same position. France isn't exactly an easy country to immigrate to. I was toying with the idea of doing a Master's earlier this year; this might be the motivation I need to get it done now.
- madeofpalk 9y agoThe US has a very similar requirement for their visa (I'm specifically referring to E3, which is the H1B for Australians) which only lets in 'skilled' people, defined by a university degree (or 3 years of work experience for every 1 year of degree, so a total of 9-12 years). It was pretty disheartening to get a job offer from a big tech firm in New York only to have any chances shot down because of visa...
- Danihan 9y agoAt least it's only a 4-year degree though.
- aussiegeek 9y agoAustralian degrees are typically three years
- realusername 9y agoIn France, 4-year degrees do not exist so it counts as a Bachelor.
- boobsbr 9y agoHave you considered Belgium? Take a look at http://www.actiris.be http://www.actiris.be. Lots of opportunities there.
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- TrevorAustin 9y agoDoes it have to be a graduate degree in something related to the job or would like an MA in Art History do the trick?
- hkmurakami 9y agoIf they're looking to attract founders, founders will obviously care about exits. It might not be the #1 concern, but it's up there. France has a reputation for very high taxes and a seeming contempt for very large cash windfalls. I'd be curious how they plan to improve this international image.
- archagon 9y agoI wonder if there are any avenues to do this as a sole proprietor? I'm an unattached programmer with a bunch of independent projects released and in the works, but I'm not really interested in doing a full-on "startup". Currently looking into DAFT, but I think France is a bit closer to my heart!
- graniter 9y agoYou could get a long term visitor visa. Lasts one year and is renewable. You need to prove that you have income, medical insurance, and promise not to work for a French company in France. http://sanfrancisco.consulfrance.org/spip.php?article2703 http://sanfrancisco.consulfrance.org/spip.php?article2703
- enriquto 9y agoI see a blank page.
- NKCSS 9y agoI guess if I'd want to attract talent, I would not use the most depressing, gray, bland picture of Paris I could find...
- biztos 9y agoFour years renewable is nice, but the higher tiers of "international tech talent" employees are usually eligible for a permanent residence permit in Germany. Does France have anything to compete with that, other than better food?
- _pmf_ 9y ago> Does France have anything to compete with that, other than better food? Are our pig intestine based 4000 kcal per serving culinary offerings not good enough for your palate?
- arethuza 9y agoWarmer beaches, fantastic skiing and mountain sports... And the food is quite a big factor. :-)
- graniter 9y agoIt's four years renewable for the residence permit, but really the important thing is to have a work contract. You get the residence permit because of the work contract. So if you still have a work contract after four years, you would just apply for another residence permit. You can have a work contract that has no expiration (no fixed duration).
- biztos 9y agoYes, but with my permanent residence permit I can take a year off to write poetry (if I could afford it) then come back and take a part-time job in a cafe or be a freelancer, and nothing would happen to my status. I'm not arguing that it's better to live in Germany than in France, that depends on way too many variables (not just the food of course). But it would be nice to see more competition. Maybe if other EU countries really started beating Germany for tech talent acquisition, Germany might finally wake up and allow dual citizenship. (Wishful thinking on my part.)
- madshiva 9y agoThis on some case could be good, but there's plenty of people with talent and they don't want to hire them or nor give them decent salary. This is what ruin the French, only following trend. USA is doing TECH DAYS, let's do the same.
- xiaoma 9y agoThey're requiring masters degrees for entrepreneur visas. One thing Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Lei Jun, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Travis Kalanic and Cheng Wei all have in common is a lack of a master's degree. Why would France add a restriction to their visa that would have eliminated the founders of Amazon, Paypal, Tesla, SpaceX, Apple, Xiaomi, Facebook, Microsoft, Oracle, Uber and Didi Chuxing? Are they pinning all their hopes on someone following the path of Larry Page or Robin Li, except choosing to immigrate to France to start their search engine? Are the people who made the rule just not aware how few of the top tech company founders have master's degrees? Is it some kind of intentional low-beta strategy to try to scoop up a bunch of more certain, smaller wins? I truly don't understand what kind of reasoning went into to this program. It's just making France look out of touch. Edit: ok apparently the founder needs money and it's employees who all need masters degrees (nearly as bad).
- ramblerman 9y agoThere is a Founders Visa and an Employees visa. Only the employee's visa requires a masters degree. All the big names you dropped were people that never intended to be employees. I'm not sure what the problem is. > It's just making France look worse. This is just silly.
- grp 9y agoYeah, and they would never have needed a special visa. It's sad, there is so much myths and fantasies around those specific guys.
- xiaoma 9y agoIt's not a "myth" or "fantasy" that they didn't have master's degrees. To the best of knowledge any of them would have needed a visa to go to France, and one of them did in fact live in Canada and then the US on visas before naturalising and starting three separate billion dollar companies along the way.
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- graniter 9y agoI live and work in France and I am well versed in this type of Visa. It's a very nice arrangement, but it's still France. It's still dealing with the same administrative burdens for everything else. You don't get treated special, you just have a special deal. I've said before that if France wants to attract foreign talent what they need to do is assign someone in the French administration to help workers get established. That is the hard part about coming to work in France. If you've dealt with the DMV in the US, imagine that for everything. You can't just walk into a bank and open an account. You can make an appointment for next week...which is your first consultation. You'll need to bring a long of documentation for your second appointment the week after. You won't get your bank card for awhile, and by the way you'll have to activate it before you can use it. That might take a week. You'll need to go to Paris for a medical check that you can do your job. All French employees must do this. And you have to do it every two years. Pee in a cup. Undress over there. You'll need to go to the prefecture to get your residence permit. It took me 5 months to get my initial appointment and a total of 9 months to get my card, even though the "long term visa" in your passport is only good for 3 months. Some people I know waited 2.5 years for their residence card, another over a year. More? The French healthcare system is pretty good, but you won't get on it until after several trips to the Social Security office. Whoops, your entire file was sent back to you because they needed some additional piece of documentation they didn't tell you about. Make another appointment. Repeat. Repeat. Drivers license? If you are 1 of 14 states you can exhcange easily, but you only have 1 year to do that, after which you have to go to driving school. 3000 euros. Better learn French to pass the test. Better learn French to navigate all the adminstration. So Year 1 you will not be productive. You will be running around trying to stay legally. For an entire year. Ask me how I know.
- grp 9y agoYou'll need to go to Paris for a medical check that you can do your job. All French employees must do this. And you have to do it every two years. Pee in a cup. Undress over there. Is it a joke? Never heard of that in 30 years..
- marsRoverDev 9y agoI work for a major French engineering company, and have done so in France - I don't know what job OP has, but my company does NOT make you do this. Also worth noting that I've had to do this in other countries; I'd say it's more problematic elsewhere. I would however say that yes, the French bureaucracy is something else entirely. But if you are friendly to them and show your face things will happen faster.
- calafrax 9y agoThis basically seems like an H1-B in the US. The US has had H1-B for 25 years now and is doing 100,000+ per year. This seems like too little too late.
- NoB4Mouth 9y agoHere is a country that refused to give me knowledge when i needed it but it's now trying to lure me in. A decade back i finished my high school in a French speaking country with honors and got an admission in a French university to study Business Administration. I've been refused the entry visa for some imaginary reasons. Unofficially i was part of the group of potential foreign students who may refuse to go back to their home-country after graduation. I then stayed in my country went to university to get a "useless" B.A. that couldn't help me to face the socio-economic realities of the world. In 2015 i read a book "Googled" by Ken Auletta that shacked me to the core and pushed me to learn how to code. I'm now a self taught programmer with skills that will benefit any French Tech startup and products' projects that could create 1000s of jobs in France if i decide to start my companies there. That said, I would not go to France because it didn't welcome me when i wanted to get in order to acquire knowledge. Now France "needs" me to come and boost their shrinking economy with the tech-knowledge i have acquired elsewhere. Sorry Monsieur le President, I ain't coming.
- samer66 9y agoIt should not be that personal. This a weird way to think of it, France is 20 million times different from the "France" of that person or persons, who decided you do not go there. I was turned down from getting an entry visa to a country when I needed it the most, yet go it later very easily for something that I was not very keen to travel for it. By the way, I went to France last month and loved every minute of it.
- devdas 9y agoDon't let anybody kid you. It's all personal, every bit of business. Every piece of shit every man has to eat every day of his life is personal. They call it business. OK. But it's personal as hell. -- Mario Puzo
- samer66 9y agoIt should not be that personal. This a weird way to think of it, France is 20 million times different from the "France" of that person or persons, who decided you do not go there. I was turned down from getting an entry visa to a country when I needed it the most, yet go it later very easily for something that I was not very keen to travel for it. By the way, I went to France last month and loved every minute of it.
- samer66 9y agoIt should not be that personal. This a weird way to think of it, France is 20 million times different from the "France" of that person or persons, who decided you do not go there. I was turned down from getting an entry visa to a country when I needed it the most, yet go it later very easily for something that I was not very keen to travel for it. By the way, I went to France last month and loved every minute of it.
- ciconia 9y agoAs some here have posted disparaging comments about French bureaucracy, I'd like to share my own experience. I've have emigrated to France four years ago with my wife and our two kids. On the whole our experience dealing with the government has been quite positive. Yes, some stuff feels really backwards, like getting a bank account (it helps a lot if you have a big wad of cash to dangle in front of your banker, you'll get treated differently), the RSI (social security for entrepreneurs) and the CAF (child support) are frustratingly incompetent, but most bureaucrats we dealt with have been quite understanding to our needs and some of them have really gone out of their way to help us. I think it really depends who you stumble upon, and most of all - if you make an effort to speak French (which is definitely one of the hardest things about emigrating to France) you'll find that in the end it all works out, it just might take some time!
- graniter 9y agoI am all for learning French and doing it "their way." The challenge I've run into with it "just taking some time" is for some things you don't have time. Things need to be done at or by a certain time. Like setting up utilities, getting a bank account, housing, signing up for healthcare, enrolling kids in school, etc. Those can't take time, they need to be done as soon as possible. So you have to get them done before you are good at the language and before you understand the processes. Things have worked out for us but Year 1 was a constant scramble. Reducing the burden of all that I think it what would really help recruit talent.
- bernardlunn 9y agoFrance needs to lower long term capital gains tax. If you work for 10 years at big risk, the payoff should be big.
- thinkingemote 9y agoFrom reading the comments there seems to be huge potential for a startup in France: Making it easy to navigate the bureaucracy. Automate everything, streamline communications, speed up enquiries, etc This is assuming that the bureaucracy cannot be disrupted itself outside of the government. I imagine if such a startup would work it would have lots of popular support. Uber for Bureaucracy.
- alpeb 9y agoVery French for them to require a masters degree for employees. Contrast that to the more welcoming working permit in Germany[1]. Also currently the startup scene in Berlin looks pretty interesting! [1]http://www.bluecard-eu.de/eu-blue-card-germany/work-permit.html http://www.bluecard-eu.de/eu-blue-card-germany/work-permit.h...