4 ms·

I live in France, I work in the IT sector. I can completely agree with what you say. From my point of view here are the biggest problems entrepreneurs have to

I live in France, I work in the IT sector. I can completely agree with what you say. From my point of view here are the biggest problems entrepreneurs have to face here: - French labor law gives much more power to the employee over the business owner. 35 hours weeks may not be applicable for IT employees, but there are high compensations. Where I work, a 50 hour week is considered "way too much". We get 35 days of paid vacation per year, my manager gets 50, I'm not even counting the myriad of public holidays. Everything from parenting leaves, to medical leaves can last weeks and cost a ton to the employwer. Did I mention that once the "trial" period (usually 3 months renewable once) is over, there are no cheap ways to fire an employee unless she screws up big time? This may all seem nice and righteous, but it's not very motivating to start your own company. - Taxes are so high it's not even funny. For every euro I earn, my employer has to pay a euro in social charges, and this isn't counting the exhorbitant taxes you pay on top of it. It's true that startups do get a grace period of 3 years, but from experience (and talking to other entrepreneurs), this is barely enough. The sickest part is that there's a market developed here where expert accountants teach young entrepreneurs how to "game" the system to minimize "tax-damage". I was shocked when I first discovered this. Until I found out how high taxes are. - Finally, and this one is the most powerful and less obvious one, there's a strong social taboo in France about being rich or even wanting to be. One thing that drives most startups I've encountered, is the drive to become insanely rich. In the US, or at least that's the impression I got there, there's no shame related to wealth. In France it is completely different. Having money, or desiring it, is bad. The rich are the "enemy" (look at recent taxation laws by our government) and the rest of us would be content with very little. Of course this is a bad generalization, but this point of view is prevalent. And this is why, I believe, the proper environment for startups is not a priority for most French people out there.

cdavid 14y ago
the "wanting to be rich" thing is frankly a cliche. Lots of people like money in France as much as everywhere else, and I don't see much difference between France and UK. It is certainly more prevalent in the US, but I would say the US are the exception. And if you want money, I am not sure startup is the likely way of doing it. Certainly, for people with the right diploma, working in the finance sector is much more rewarding financially speaking. Regarding the taxes, I will say what I always say: yes they are higher than in the UK, but you get more. So you need to compare what you're getting, otherwise the comparison is meaningless. I am working in the UK, where I paid around 35 % of taxes, so quite lower than France, where it would be closer to 50-55 % I think for my salary. But then, I get shitty health care and essentially no pension. And if I have kids, I will have to pay a lots of money to get them a decent school. I would love paying 15-20 points more taxes in exchange for that in the UK. IMO, the main issue in France is more the education system and how the incentives are highly biased toward going to a big company. The whole society is highly biased against failure, and the only path to a 'career' is through 'soft' areas. I am just over 30 and my parents don't understand why I am still doing engineering instead of 'managing' people, for example. This is the main reason why I have been leaving outside France for the last 8 years or so, not taxes.
- mseebach 14y ago
  Certainly, yes, services provided need to be compared along with the tax rate to get a fair comparison - but the idea that you get your taxes back is a red herring. There is a clear element of redistribution built in, there will always be some people who put in more than they use and some people who get out more than they put in - otherwise you could just let people buy these services for themselves.
  - cdavid 14y ago
    Yes, of course, there is some redistribution going on. But that's not the main explanation of the difference between say UK and France taxes. If you remove pension funding alone, you get very close between UK and France, I believe, although I have not checked the numbers (it would cost me around 17 % of my pre-income tax to contribute to the French pension system, so I am basing my calculation only my case alone with all the associated caveats). As for letting people buy those services, this becomes more dependent of what you believe: I don't think it is that clear cut that there is no net benefit of having everyone getting the same basic health care in terms of costs, etc... A lots of what is costly in France is closer to insurance than anything else. Buying an insurance against disability is so expensive in the UK that nobody does it (which is why it is expensive in the first place). Since everybody has to do it in France, the system becomes much more viable since the pooling is very large.
    - mseebach 14y ago
      The difference between UK and French pension payments is that in the UK you actually own your contributions, in France you merely hope that a future politician won't decide that you're too rich to get a state pension ("means-tested benefits" is fancy word this in the UK). In Denmark it's a national sport for politicians to figure out just how many pensioners/soon-to-be-pensioners you can afford to piss off in a given election cycle and adjust various limits accordingly.
      - mercurial 14y ago
        I think the situation in the UK is only superficially different. Does anything prevent the government from increasing taxes on private pensions?
huhtenberg 14y ago
Interesting, but what I don't understand is why businesses aren't adapting and working around this sort of issues. Look at Canada - you can't discriminate based on gender, age or race, but you can hire beautiful young girls as models that also happen to wait tables in Cactus Club and Earls. If full-timers are such a pain to deal with in France, why not hire more contractors? In fact, why not skip full-timers altogether. Seems perfectly doable, especially in startups context, no?
- byroot 14y ago
  Sure it's totally doable. But contractors have the drawback to be able to leave very quickly on the other side full-timers once their trial period ended (up to 3 month renewable, so 6 month) have a 3 month period before quiting. French entrepreneurs can already have flexibility. They only want it to be one way.
mempko 14y ago
It appears the rich are the enemy if what you say is correct. The rich want to pay people less, have them work more, and in the end they also want the system to help them do this. How are the rich not the enemy here? Maybe VC funding and the startup culture is really not the best way to build technology, despite what Americans may have you believe.

cdavid 14y ago

the "wanting to be rich" thing is frankly a cliche. Lots of people like money in France as much as everywhere else, and I don't see much difference between France and UK. It is certainly more prevalent in the US, but I would say the US are the exception. And if you want money, I am not sure startup is the likely way of doing it. Certainly, for people with the right diploma, working in the finance sector is much more rewarding financially speaking. Regarding the taxes, I will say what I always say: yes they are higher than in the UK, but you get more. So you need to compare what you're getting, otherwise the comparison is meaningless. I am working in the UK, where I paid around 35 % of taxes, so quite lower than France, where it would be closer to 50-55 % I think for my salary. But then, I get shitty health care and essentially no pension. And if I have kids, I will have to pay a lots of money to get them a decent school. I would love paying 15-20 points more taxes in exchange for that in the UK. IMO, the main issue in France is more the education system and how the incentives are highly biased toward going to a big company. The whole society is highly biased against failure, and the only path to a 'career' is through 'soft' areas. I am just over 30 and my parents don't understand why I am still doing engineering instead of 'managing' people, for example. This is the main reason why I have been leaving outside France for the last 8 years or so, not taxes.

mseebach 14y ago
Certainly, yes, services provided need to be compared along with the tax rate to get a fair comparison - but the idea that you get your taxes back is a red herring. There is a clear element of redistribution built in, there will always be some people who put in more than they use and some people who get out more than they put in - otherwise you could just let people buy these services for themselves.
- cdavid 14y ago
  Yes, of course, there is some redistribution going on. But that's not the main explanation of the difference between say UK and France taxes. If you remove pension funding alone, you get very close between UK and France, I believe, although I have not checked the numbers (it would cost me around 17 % of my pre-income tax to contribute to the French pension system, so I am basing my calculation only my case alone with all the associated caveats). As for letting people buy those services, this becomes more dependent of what you believe: I don't think it is that clear cut that there is no net benefit of having everyone getting the same basic health care in terms of costs, etc... A lots of what is costly in France is closer to insurance than anything else. Buying an insurance against disability is so expensive in the UK that nobody does it (which is why it is expensive in the first place). Since everybody has to do it in France, the system becomes much more viable since the pooling is very large.
  - mseebach 14y ago
    The difference between UK and French pension payments is that in the UK you actually own your contributions, in France you merely hope that a future politician won't decide that you're too rich to get a state pension ("means-tested benefits" is fancy word this in the UK). In Denmark it's a national sport for politicians to figure out just how many pensioners/soon-to-be-pensioners you can afford to piss off in a given election cycle and adjust various limits accordingly.
    - mercurial 14y ago
      I think the situation in the UK is only superficially different. Does anything prevent the government from increasing taxes on private pensions?

huhtenberg 14y ago

Interesting, but what I don't understand is why businesses aren't adapting and working around this sort of issues. Look at Canada - you can't discriminate based on gender, age or race, but you can hire beautiful young girls as models that also happen to wait tables in Cactus Club and Earls. If full-timers are such a pain to deal with in France, why not hire more contractors? In fact, why not skip full-timers altogether. Seems perfectly doable, especially in startups context, no?

byroot 14y ago
Sure it's totally doable. But contractors have the drawback to be able to leave very quickly on the other side full-timers once their trial period ended (up to 3 month renewable, so 6 month) have a 3 month period before quiting. French entrepreneurs can already have flexibility. They only want it to be one way.

mempko 14y ago

It appears the rich are the enemy if what you say is correct. The rich want to pay people less, have them work more, and in the end they also want the system to help them do this. How are the rich not the enemy here? Maybe VC funding and the startup culture is really not the best way to build technology, despite what Americans may have you believe.