[jseliger]

Interesting post. That being said, point one isn't that important for most young healthy people. Point three is in the distant future: I'd rather have a dollar today than one forty years from now. Point four is not very important for highly paid engineers.

Point two may be the most interesting one: for a given individual, it may make the most sense to get high-quality French education and then go out and earn high-end American wages that are keyed to U.S. education costs.

In short, France may be facing an arbitrage problem. People who are sick, old, or receiving educations have high incentives to stay. People who are young, healthy, and have already received educations have incentives to go where they can earn more today.

[renaudg]

Absolutely,

And short of counting on the young & healthy expats' patriotism and sense of duty (or going the US route and taxing citizens on their worldwide income) the only way out for France is to make itself slightly more attractive to net contributors / high earners again, by cutting taxes & benefits slightly, so that balance is restored.

But people and organizations on the receiving end of welfare will hear none of it and don't understand they're killing the golden goose. They'd much rather see a citizenship-based tax obligation like the US has (oddly, as it's a very socialist idea)