7 ms·

There are a bunch of nice things to be said about Paris and the tax rebate system they put in place for startups and companies that spend heavily in R&D. Howeve

by carlob 12y ago

There are a bunch of nice things to be said about Paris and the tax rebate system they put in place for startups and companies that spend heavily in R&D. However I think that Paris has a very low quality of life in most of the fields that are ignored in metrics: - Apartment prices are usually measure by the room when doing comparisons. In Paris the room count is misleading: I've seen studios smaller than 15 m^2 and 1BR smaller than 25 m^2. - Apartment quality is really really bad: creaky, cracked hardwood floors that haven't been replaced since Haussmann, humidity and mold are the default. - The weather is awful, it rains 40% of the days. - This might sound surprising but the average food quality is abysmal: produce is expensive and tastes like nothing and the random brasserie is an expensive tourist trap. - Some of the stereotypes about the Parisian being grumpy and pretending not to speak English have a grain of truth. [edit: this is going to get me downvoted to hell] So if you are really planning to start a business in France, go to another city: e.g. Lille is a thriving city with a very rich cultural life, it's 1h away from Paris by train (if you need to network you can commute) and doesn't suffer from most of the above (except for the climate).

fermigier 12y ago
"The weather is awful, it rains 40% of the days." -> According to Wikipedia (http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climat_de_Paris http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climat_de_Paris) this is untrue. "Paris connaît en moyenne 111,1 jours de pluie par an, mais si celles-ci sont fréquentes, elles sont en revanche peu soutenues." In other words, it rains 30% of the days on average, and these are very light rains, most of the time.
- carlob 12y ago
  I did the computation myself I think in the span 2000-2013, using data from Wolfram|Alpha and I was surprised to find that Paris had 46% of days with at least one shower. Here are the cities I had checked: London 42 Paris 46 Rome 23 Boston 32 Buenos Aires 30 San Francisco 18 Lima 21 Beijing 24 Sydney 20 Moscow 31 If you want to try it yourself from the beginning of 2000 to now: https://www.wolframcloud.com/objects/b432e59c-fa11-497b-8f6a-b86b0c3efaff https://www.wolframcloud.com/objects/b432e59c-fa11-497b-8f6a...
  - afterburner 12y ago
    Average sunny hours per day is probably a better measure of what it feels like to be there: http://www.holiday-weather.com/paris/averages/ http://www.holiday-weather.com/paris/averages/ Paris: 6.75 London: 5.58 NYC: 7.33 SF: 9.67 (nice summers) Nice: 11
  - riccardodiv 12y ago
    amazing
hk__2 12y ago
> The weather is awful, it rains 40% of the days. According to Wikipedia [1] it’s only 30% (650mm/year, while it’s 980mm/year in Bordeaux or 800mm/year in Nice [2]) > the random brasserie is an expensive tourist trap To be fair, a lot of “random brasseries” are pretty good, you can eat a good meal for €10 everywhere in the city. [1]: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climat_de_Paris https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climat_de_Paris [2]: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climat_de_la_France#Donn.C3.A9es_climatiques_de_quelques_villes https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climat_de_la_France#Donn.C3.A9...
- carlob 12y ago
  > To be fair, a lot of “random brasseries” are pretty good, you can eat a good meal for €10 everywhere in the city. You'd have better luck with a random $3 slice of pizza in NYC IMHO. Don't get me started on the kind of lunch €5 gets you anywhere in Italy.
  - Aramsae 12y ago
    Well, in France we don't have the culture of junk food and fast-food... If you want to eat that way you need to prepare it yourself, if not yeah you're right it's more expensive than NYC. But you should try a sandwich with a good baguette !
    - carlob 12y ago
      I lived four years in Paris and the fact that junk food culture is absent in France is a myth! University cafeterias serve fries every day as one of the options and there are a lot of kebab places throughout the city, but mind you not a good pita with lots of salad, but a sandwich with a ton fries. Moreover I think a slice of pizza with tomato and mozzarella is not junk food. But maybe that's just me.
      - reacweb 12y ago
        By "junk food culture absence" in France, it means that junk food in France is most often very very bad.
megalomanu 12y ago
A city like Lille (or Strasbourg, Nantes, etc.) offers a much better quality of life but looks like to a small village regarding tech, in comparison to Paris. The business activity outside Paris in very weak. Few startups, few engineers, few meetups ... I don't regret my former "provincial" life, even if I live now in a small apartment in a decrepit building in a noisy neighborhood.
- draven 12y ago
  That's a problem in France, everything is centralized in Paris. There are aternatives though: I worked for a few years in Grenoble (I'm now in Lyon) and there are interesting meetups in Geneva and Lyon which are both about 1 hour from Grenoble by car or train.
  - maxmouchet 12y ago
    Wow, rare to see people from the Rhône-Alpes area on HN :) I'm a student in engineering and I live in Lyon too, can you tell more about these events/meetups ? I'd be really interested !
alexjab 12y ago
I've lived in Paris (and Lyon) for years, and here is what I have to say about that: - "Apartment quality is really really bad": no always true, like in any other major city (try NYC), - "The weather is awful, it rains 40% of the days": the same, - "food quality is abysmal": very true (only applies to restaurants, supermarket food is standard), - "Parisian being grumpy": fair enough, - "pretending not to speak English": I don't think that's true (but it's hard to objectively assess).
- jmnicolas 12y ago
  > "pretending not to speak English" It's not that they pretend, they really don't speak English ;-) More precisely they have some notions of English but 1) they won't understand a native and can only pick a few words 2) they're ashamed of their accent so they won't even try to speak 3) due to their poor lifestyle Parisians are (mostly) dicks and do not represent Frenchies in general. Don't get fooled by the French people you see on HN (like me) they are a rarity.
  - alexjab 12y ago
    > "they really don't speak English ;-)" I had it on the tip of my tongue, but I did not want to sound too offensive; although I dread to say it, it is quite true; however, it's not uncommon to hear people at least trying.
  - tormeh 12y ago
    Have you lived in Paris? Everyone I talk to tell me parisians* are dicks. I don't get how an entire city can be full of only arrogant bastards. Is that really the case? *or however it's written.
    - Yoric 12y ago
      Just to clarify, "parisiennes" == "women of Paris". Is that what you had in mind when you wrote that comment?
      - 12y ago
S4M 12y ago
From your description, Paris sounds like a cheaper London, minus the English - I wouldn't recommend moving there to create your company if you don't speak French, administrative tasks will be too much of a pain, and many people in France don't speak English.
flanbiscuit 12y ago
I'm curious to know where your comparison is coming from? You obviously had some experience with Paris but I'd like to know where you were living before you went to Paris. Coming from NYC I don't see that much of a difference in some of the things you've mentioned from living here.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

by carlob 12y ago

fermigier 12y ago

"The weather is awful, it rains 40% of the days." -> According to Wikipedia (http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climat_de_Paris http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climat_de_Paris) this is untrue. "Paris connaît en moyenne 111,1 jours de pluie par an, mais si celles-ci sont fréquentes, elles sont en revanche peu soutenues." In other words, it rains 30% of the days on average, and these are very light rains, most of the time.

carlob 12y ago
I did the computation myself I think in the span 2000-2013, using data from Wolfram|Alpha and I was surprised to find that Paris had 46% of days with at least one shower. Here are the cities I had checked: London 42 Paris 46 Rome 23 Boston 32 Buenos Aires 30 San Francisco 18 Lima 21 Beijing 24 Sydney 20 Moscow 31 If you want to try it yourself from the beginning of 2000 to now: https://www.wolframcloud.com/objects/b432e59c-fa11-497b-8f6a-b86b0c3efaff https://www.wolframcloud.com/objects/b432e59c-fa11-497b-8f6a...
- afterburner 12y ago
  Average sunny hours per day is probably a better measure of what it feels like to be there: http://www.holiday-weather.com/paris/averages/ http://www.holiday-weather.com/paris/averages/ Paris: 6.75 London: 5.58 NYC: 7.33 SF: 9.67 (nice summers) Nice: 11
- riccardodiv 12y ago
  amazing

hk__2 12y ago

> The weather is awful, it rains 40% of the days. According to Wikipedia [1] it’s only 30% (650mm/year, while it’s 980mm/year in Bordeaux or 800mm/year in Nice [2]) > the random brasserie is an expensive tourist trap To be fair, a lot of “random brasseries” are pretty good, you can eat a good meal for €10 everywhere in the city. [1]: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climat_de_Paris https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climat_de_Paris [2]: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climat_de_la_France#Donn.C3.A9es_climatiques_de_quelques_villes https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climat_de_la_France#Donn.C3.A9...

carlob 12y ago
> To be fair, a lot of “random brasseries” are pretty good, you can eat a good meal for €10 everywhere in the city. You'd have better luck with a random $3 slice of pizza in NYC IMHO. Don't get me started on the kind of lunch €5 gets you anywhere in Italy.
- Aramsae 12y ago
  Well, in France we don't have the culture of junk food and fast-food... If you want to eat that way you need to prepare it yourself, if not yeah you're right it's more expensive than NYC. But you should try a sandwich with a good baguette !
  - carlob 12y ago
    I lived four years in Paris and the fact that junk food culture is absent in France is a myth! University cafeterias serve fries every day as one of the options and there are a lot of kebab places throughout the city, but mind you not a good pita with lots of salad, but a sandwich with a ton fries. Moreover I think a slice of pizza with tomato and mozzarella is not junk food. But maybe that's just me.
    - reacweb 12y ago
      By "junk food culture absence" in France, it means that junk food in France is most often very very bad.

megalomanu 12y ago

A city like Lille (or Strasbourg, Nantes, etc.) offers a much better quality of life but looks like to a small village regarding tech, in comparison to Paris. The business activity outside Paris in very weak. Few startups, few engineers, few meetups ... I don't regret my former "provincial" life, even if I live now in a small apartment in a decrepit building in a noisy neighborhood.

draven 12y ago
That's a problem in France, everything is centralized in Paris. There are aternatives though: I worked for a few years in Grenoble (I'm now in Lyon) and there are interesting meetups in Geneva and Lyon which are both about 1 hour from Grenoble by car or train.
- maxmouchet 12y ago
  Wow, rare to see people from the Rhône-Alpes area on HN :) I'm a student in engineering and I live in Lyon too, can you tell more about these events/meetups ? I'd be really interested !

alexjab 12y ago

I've lived in Paris (and Lyon) for years, and here is what I have to say about that: - "Apartment quality is really really bad": no always true, like in any other major city (try NYC), - "The weather is awful, it rains 40% of the days": the same, - "food quality is abysmal": very true (only applies to restaurants, supermarket food is standard), - "Parisian being grumpy": fair enough, - "pretending not to speak English": I don't think that's true (but it's hard to objectively assess).

jmnicolas 12y ago
> "pretending not to speak English" It's not that they pretend, they really don't speak English ;-) More precisely they have some notions of English but 1) they won't understand a native and can only pick a few words 2) they're ashamed of their accent so they won't even try to speak 3) due to their poor lifestyle Parisians are (mostly) dicks and do not represent Frenchies in general. Don't get fooled by the French people you see on HN (like me) they are a rarity.
- alexjab 12y ago
  > "they really don't speak English ;-)" I had it on the tip of my tongue, but I did not want to sound too offensive; although I dread to say it, it is quite true; however, it's not uncommon to hear people at least trying.
- tormeh 12y ago
  Have you lived in Paris? Everyone I talk to tell me parisians* are dicks. I don't get how an entire city can be full of only arrogant bastards. Is that really the case? *or however it's written.
  - Yoric 12y ago
    Just to clarify, "parisiennes" == "women of Paris". Is that what you had in mind when you wrote that comment?
    - 12y ago

S4M 12y ago

From your description, Paris sounds like a cheaper London, minus the English - I wouldn't recommend moving there to create your company if you don't speak French, administrative tasks will be too much of a pain, and many people in France don't speak English.

flanbiscuit 12y ago

I'm curious to know where your comparison is coming from? You obviously had some experience with Paris but I'd like to know where you were living before you went to Paris. Coming from NYC I don't see that much of a difference in some of the things you've mentioned from living here.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]