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.
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.
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.
Edit: Dear fellow French. Please argue, don't just downvote and call BS.
You are confusing personal taxes (up to 60% if you're rich... and stupid) and corporate taxes (which ARE 33%). The rest of your post is just your own - subjective - opinions, but I can tell from what you think that you are NOT running a business in France.
By the way, I've fired 4 people in the past 6 months, and I haven't got sued. It's a question of doing it by the rules.
Right. Cause God knows paying taxes is stupid. I hate being French when I read non-sense like that, people need to educate themselves on the reality of the French taxation system and what it entails instead of viewing it through the reductive and limited angle of "whaaaa whaaa the state is stealing my hard-earned money".
You'll think about stupid next time you go to a hospital, next time you cough the measly 20 euros up at the doctor, next time you need to send your kid to school or daycare and all that stuff that "stupid people" pay for.
Just saying that there are A LOT of fiscal optimizations - totally legal and publicly encouraged - to keep your taxes below 40%.
Otherwise, I can't agree more with you about the chance of accessing amazingly good healthcare services for free in France.
Here, Walter White would not have had to cook meth, after all...
I think he's folding in the "charges sociales" that companies have to pay out to the government when they offer a salary. From what I heard they're roughly 50% of the salary cost of each employee. I'm no expert though... could be different.
They're not free, you're paying 60% minimum of your income in taxes and a good part of goes to social security. Not only is that not free but it's extremely expensive. And hospitals are not the best either, in fact I'd avoid them if I were you if you care about not getting nosocomial infections, they're famous for that.
My son was born very prematured (6 month), he was born at Port-Royal in Paris (APHP, French public hospital), the total cost of his birth was 320k€, I did not even issue my credit card ONCE. Paid by public money. Period.
Taxes are NOT 60% for business, it's 30%. It can go up to a bit less than 60% on personal incomes. That is if your are extremely rich. In 2012, the average taxation was less than 6%. The 45% slice of imposition (which to date is the highest) applies only if you earn more than 500,000€, and only on your incomes above that threshold.
For instance if you earn 1,000,000€ you will pay 458,140.05€ of taxes on incomes, which is a bit less than 46%. To get up to 60% of taxes on incomes, you have to be immensely rich, you won't be suffering from your contribution to society.
> the State is bordering on insanity
Your personal (and imho, stupid as fuck, even if I don't particularly like our government) opinion.
> social security doesn't reimburse much anymore and yet you're forced to pay for it+a private insurance
This couldn't be more wrong. I don't have a private insurance (nor what we call a "mutuelle" to be clear), I only have the minimum public social security. I went to the hospital twice last month, and both time got a small surgical act in addition to the consultation of a doctor (she's one of the best in her domain, worldwide, fwiw). This cost me 21€ the first time and 7.5€ the second time. Most of the medicine I had to take after that were reimbursed almost entirely. This is not a special case, this is the rule.
> firing people is extremely costly, you can end up paying someone for years even though he's not doing anything anymore.
Other people responded to that one. But I may add that if you end up paying people for years after they stop working for you it's either for a non-competition contract or that you fired people without being able to give a reason. Too bad for you, workers are a bit protected in this country.
> 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.
Let me laugh a bit I'll come back when I'm done.
Your next paragraph is pure speculations and is plain wrong. No the richest didn't leave. A few cunt like Depardieu left and made a lot of noise about it, but that's all. But if you want to leave, feel free, nobody will stop you.
Oh come on, you know that when you sum up all taxes and regulations, it costs way more than 30%, it's more like 50% minimum.
> It can go up to a bit less than 60% on personal incomes.That is if your are extremely rich
How naive, when you make 2000€, you cost 4000€ to your employer. That means your real salary is 4000 € minus 50% that goes through taxes that your employer pays but really he's passing the costs on you unless you think he's paying you a free meal. So that's 50% already for everyone, then you have to subtract 20 to 30% on the 2000€. So yeah, my 60% is pretty accurate.
> Your personal (and imho, stupid as fuck, even if I don't particularly like our government) opinion.
First of all, no need to be so rude. Second, it is being insane. Their answer to everything is more tax even though this is killing the economy. It's clear now that France is governed by a theocracy, a new serfdom where God is Public spending, the clergé is the public workers that pay no taxes and get to retire early with big salaries and lots of privileges and the Tiers état is the people paying for the rest. http://leblogalupus.com/2013/10/09/charles-gave-la-france-es...
> a doctor (she's one of the best in her domain, worldwide, fwiw). This cost me 21€ the first time and 7.5€
So one of the best doctors is paid 21€ and 7.5€? Wow, that's less than flipping burgers at your local burger joint. Do you do consulting at this price too? Anyway, this is an anecdotical evidence of yours. It's a fact that Securité social does not reimburse much any more and yet you still have to pay for it and get a private insurance on the side. This is well documented http://www.securite-sociale.info/
> it's either for a non-competition contract or that you fired people without being able to give a reason. Too bad for you, workers are a bit protected in this country.
See, this is where we disagree. It is my company, my private property. I should be able to do as I please with it as long as don't mess with other's freedom, this is a constitutional right in the declaration of human rights, private property is sacred. I should be allowed to employ and stop employing whoever I want, whenever I want. This is why there is so much unemployment in France, it's so hard and costly to fire people that we'd rather not employ them. You think you're helping workers but you're not, you're creating more unemployment. Countries like Switzerland that don't have such "protection" have much less unemployment.
> A few cunt like Depardieu left
Are you serious? The richest man in France has left and many of the top richest famillies have left: LVMH, Lacoste, Peugeot etc. Not only that but most of our artists and sports men have left. Anyone who creates lots of wealth has left the country. Don't you see a wrong pattern here? How blind can one be. http://www.latribune.fr/vos-finances/impots/fiscalite/201112...
> It is my company, my private property. I should be able to do as I please with it as long as don't mess with other's freedom, this is a constitutional right in the declaration of human rights, private property is sacred.
No you should not, and no, that's really not what the declaration of human rights is about.
When you create a french company your create a “personne morale”, a legal entity, an entity on its own, that is viewed more like a living entity and not like an inanimate object. You do have rights on this entity, but you do also have obligations, not the least of which is to follow the law.
So no, just because you want to you can't employ underage kids for instance.
And just because you want, you can't just fire people at will without reasons.
One could argue that laws could be improved, but that's really not the point you're making.
>God is Public spending, the clergé is the public workers that pay no taxes and get to retire early with big salaries and lots of privileges and the Tiers état is the people paying for the rest. http://leblogalupus.com/2013/10/09/charles-gave-la-france-es...
Yep, because as any Friedman loving economist (like Charles Gave you're linking to) will tell you, there's only one God and it's the Market.
>So one of the best doctors is paid 21€ and 7.5€?
No, you see, that's the thing about Social Security (you seem to know so much about), that's what the OP paid, the rest was paid to the doctor by the Social Security. This is well documented in http://www.securite-sociale.info/ you should take a look.
>See, this is where we disagree. It is my company, my private property. I should be able to do as I please with it as long as don't mess with other's freedom, this is a constitutional right in the declaration of human rights, private property is sacred.
"There is just one God, and it's private property". Where did you find "private property is sacred" anywhere in the declaration of human rights?
>Are you serious? The richest man in France has left and many of the top richest famillies have left: LVMH, Lacoste, Peugeot etc.
Yep and Apple, Google et al. don't pay any corporate taxes. Surely, the problem is the taxes.
> Yep, because as any Friedman loving economist (like Charles Gave you're linking to) will tell you, there's only one God and it's the Market.
Oh but I love Friedman too. And what's wrong with the market? What else is the market but people freely exchanging goods and services voluntary? What is more peaceful than two people making a voluntary deal? What are we entrepreneurs doing if not that? See Friedman's famous pencil example http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlTRau_XgGs
> No, you see, that's the thing about Social Security (you seem to know so much about), that's what the OP paid, the rest was paid to the doctor by the Social Security.
That's my point, 21€ and 7.5€ is what you see, what you don't see is the 60% income tax we all pay to get this. Not really that cheap anymore.
> Where did you find "private property is sacred" anywhere in the declaration of human rights?
omg, really? You haven't even read the first line of the declaration? Here you go:
"dans une Déclaration solennelle, les droits naturels, inaliénables et sacrés de l’homme"
Article 2:
"Ces droits sont la liberté, la propriété, la sûreté et la résistance à l’oppression."
Finally here's another good one from the 1789 act:
"Un peuple libre n'acquitte que des contributions, un peuple esclave paie des impôts »". A free people pays bills (ie from private companies), a people of slaves pays taxes. Yep, that's from our founding fathers. Milton Friedman and Ayn Rand could not have put it better. Have a nice day citoyen :)
Friedman is a hack ignored by anyone with half a brain. Same with Ayn Rand. They say incredible things, if you don't spend much time thinking about it.
Anonymous coward fivethree says Nobel price Friedman and best sellers Ayn Rand are hacks. Hey people, pay attention, we should ignore these two starting today!
First, you need to decide if the taxes on the salary are paid by the company or by the employee (I believe it's by the employee, since (s)he is a priori the one who do the work creating this wealth), you can't count them twice as you are doing here, it is dishonest reasoning.
Your computation is wrong, because if you make 2000€/month, your taxes on income are closer to 10% than to 30%. Also, I (and many other people), don't see the "charges" (taxes taken on the salary before it is paid to the employee) as a taxes such as the one on incomes because it pays for good and free public school, good and free universities, good and free hospitals, retirement and unemployment systems… If you take all that into account in the computation, it's actually a big win for everyone. Maybe it is not the case for a few exceptions of very rich people who would be even richer, but what's the point of that?
Sorry for being rude, I read your first post as quite rude and was reacting in the heat of the moment.
This government doesn't have anwser to everything, and their answer is not generally "more tax". On the contrary I find that a lot a gifts are made to companies in "crédit d'impôt".
No the doctor is not paid 21€ and 7.5€, that is the point, actually. What I told is not an anecdotal evidence, it is the general rule. If you say the opposite you are either lying or you don't know what you are talking about. The only thing that are not well reimbursed by the Sécurité Sociale is optical and dental, but mutuelles (semi-private or private insurance) are quite good for this.
Also, the website you link about the Sécurité Sociale is pure propaganda.
We agree on one thing here: we are totally disagreeing on what are your rights as a company owner.
Your analogy with god, clergé, tiers-états, etc. is wrong. "the clergé is the public workers that pay no taxes and get to retire early with big salaries". Really? Have you looked at the salary of professor and researcher in France compared to those of engineer in the industry? Do you really live in France?
Concerning the richests:
LVMH: the company is still based in France. Bernard Arnault (who is the 10th worldwide richest man) is still French.
Lacoste: the company is still based in France. José Luis Duran is still French, René Lacoste was too until his death.
Peugeot: the company is still based in France. Philippe Varin is still French. I'm not sure about Thierry Peugeot, maybe you are right and he left.
Other than that, Iliad, Auchan, Dassault, L'Oréal, Hermes, Bollore, Pernod Ricard… I don't see any movements in the French top 30 richest people/company in the past decade.
Now, it's true that they cheat with their taxes, but it's not right and maybe if those big companies, rich person participated fairly to the society effort there would be less taxes on smaller companies…
> Plus, French engineers compensations are half US engineers compensations in average.
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".
I love working at startups but sometimes their offers are a fucking joke around here.
I know internships shouldn't be done for the money, I've already done some 436.05e/month ones, don't worry about that.
As a former startup CTO, I confirm that "we" (== the start-ups) love interns, for all the bad reasons.
They are dirt cheap, they often don't have enough experience to say no when they are handed the crap tasks, and if we decide to hire them, we can offer very low wages, because they often don't take the time to check out the competition. Oh, and they can be blamed for just about anything wrong that happens, too.
I remember my days as intern. So true! It's a dirty game, but it is played dirty (most of the time) by both sides. The (presumably) naïve intern only stays until he wakes up, then having now the luxury of time on his side and the leverage of already being employed, just bids himself to better offers.
1. That's only half if you compare with Silicon Valley, not the US average
2. For the employer: there's more taxes to pay than in US, so the cost is not half
3. For the employee: you a lot of "social benefits" like health care, free education for your kids, etc. so a lower salary in France doesn't necessarily mean lower life standard
There is however a problem in French startup is that most of them pay much lower than the average job an engineer can get (i.e. B2B service industry). That's a consequence of not being able to raise as much as in Silicon Valley.
1. Right, but both the Valley and Paris are tremendously expensive places to be - arguably Paris has more justification for being expensive, being more desirable in non-tech ways. The fair way to look at it is by comparing salary relative to cost of living, and I'm not sure if Paris is competitive even then.
2 + 3. I'm a Canadian, I'm used to social benefits, but Canadian taxes also aren't that much higher than US taxes. In fact, when I was in California the taxes were for all intents and purposes identical to the equivalent income in Canada. From the sounds of other posts, the tax revenue is primarily coming out of personal income taxes, not corporate taxes - which means a lower salary is extra-painful.
I've heard this argument from Canadians, that the 50%-off-engineers situation in Canada compared to the US is somehow a good thing. It's not, there is a tremendous brain drain to the extent that of all the capable devs I've met in school, I only know 3 who remain in Canada.
Good by Silicon Valley standards or good by European standards? Because as a software engineer moving from Minneapolis to Palo Alto to London, I have to say salaries in Europe are a fucking joke (although it's improving).
Good by french intern standards, so... if you're getting more than minimum wage (1400) you're _very_ (very) lucky.
And I'm still wondering which french startups offer an OK compensation.
Had interviews at two of them 5 months ago, one is going very big (and was part of Le Camping incubator), the other one has more than 1 million users as of today. Both offered 600e/month.
According to Glassdor the average salary is about €39k[1]. In my experience a "good" salary for a french engineer is between €42-50k. Housing isn't cheap in Paris - count about 12k-18k for 430-650 sqft. Going out isn't cheap either.
I've lived a year in SF and had definitely a better [salary]/[cost of life]. It was 5 years ago though.
That's meaningless since costs vary along different axes. I just mean objectively software engineers have not traditionally been valued the same in Europe as they have been in the US.
Thanks. The #pigeons did hurt a lot last year, and after a few months in SF and in Boston I've been amazed how many beliefs foreign observers have about the French startup ecosystem. You're probably right about France (vs) Europe. Would be happy to have some comments from European folks here.
Some links about that "pigeons" thing would strenghten your article. I had to google the term to understand what it meant - a national political pressure campaign about taxes that backfired in terms of reputation, am I right?
When reading the article I just skipped that particular point thinking it was some kind of inside joke I didn't get.
One thing I'd like to know about Paris is how non-French-speaking-friendly the startup scene there is. I'm Dutch, my French goes as far as "je m'appelle une baguette". I'm weary of moving to Paris simply because of my experience that the French are, well, less comfortable communicating in English than the inhabitants of some other countries around here, even among the higher educated.
You're right, thanks @skrebbel. "Pigeons" were indeed a group of entrepreneurs fighting a new tax project of the newly elected socialist government in 2012. If they were right or wrong, I won't debate, I'm just thinking they did a terrible job in downgrading the image of France abroad.
Non-French-speaking entrepreneurs are welcome in Paris, I can help putting you in touch with good accelerators that can host you and provide guidance. The startup scene in France today is totally fluent in English, you should feel comfortale.
$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.
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.