[belzebalex]

Yeah, as a French I can only completely agree. The amount of paperwork is just absurd. For instance, when you create a company, you have to pay a separate fee (~200eur) to a private "official journal" to publish the fact that you're creating a company. That's just plain racket, and that kind of things is everywhere.

France is dying, because France can't have a private sector because of its regulations.

The fun part is, now that France is in the neo-liberal EU, France is dismantling its super-big-yet-working-ok public sector to make place for private companies... That can't exist because of regulations.

France is dying to me. As an 18-yo, I'm seriously concerned on what to do for my future. The country has a super good education system (I would easily say the best in the world, by far) (just check out the ENS's Nobel prize / admissions ratio) but has no companies where people do any work. Most of the brilliant French minds go to work in other countries where it's possible to create and operate a company.

[allan_s]

> you have to pay a separate fee (~200eur)

this number is incorrect , or you get fooled, I was working in a startup that was exactly helping people creating companies with the paperwork, including the step you're mentionning, and it was 20 to 30 euros , maybe 50 depending on the journal and option you take

200~300 euros was the price we billed for a startup creation including ALL the paperwork, admnistrative fee, publication fee, and the fact we will review all your documents before submiting them to the french administration and do the follow up with you in case your submission was still denied.

[belzebalex]

One source: https://www.entreprises-et-droit.fr/annonce-legale-creation-...

Maybe did your company have a bulk pricing? Often, companies that offer "registration as a service" have a 200eur fee that excludes that kind of administrative fees. But 30eur for the announcement? Never seen that.

[ohgodplsno]

https://www.economie.gouv.fr/entreprises/publier-annonce-leg...

4,16€ / line.

[yodsanklai]

Your message is full of cliches.

> when you create a company, you have to pay a separate fee (~200eur) to a private "official journal" to publish the fact that you're creating a company.

Irrelevant, it's a ridiculous amount compared to other costs involved in starting a company.

> just check out the ENS's Nobel prize / admissions ratio

This doesn't tell anything about the French education system.

> Most of the brilliant French minds go to work in other countries where it's possible to create and operate a company.

A lot of brillant minds don't have any interest in creating a company. Besides, the world is a big place with many opportunities. Nowadays it's easy to travel and work abroad. A lot of people, brillant or not, leave their country out of curiosity.

As any places, France has good and bad things. Usually, we understand what we miss after living a few years abroad.

[Juliate]

Take business creation & administration. The climate now in France for that is incommensurably better now than it was 20 years ago. The paperwork, the administrative va-et-vient, the relations with the state, insurances, banks, profesionnal networks & helpers, are way faster and leaner now.

And even the startup culture itself, or the social consideration of pursuing one venture, is of course not the same as in the US or in Germany, but it was pretty much non-existent just 15 years ago, compared to what it is now. It's not perfect, because it's young still, but it's here now.

About regulation, per se, it's not a bad thing.

About education... you don't get to judge a system by a single metric, especially not one that pertains only to a very small sample. Not saying it's good/bad/better/worse.

You're 18yo, you have plenty of energy and headroom to discover and create anything, anywhere; what matters is the networks with which you will work, wherever they are.

[keyrat]

I don't know about how the rest of things compare but to put it into perspective for you, in Florida in the USA, you need to pay $400/year to keep your company official. And Florida is considered a relatively easy place to do business.

[jcelerier]

> Yeah, as a French I can only completely agree. The amount of paperwork is just absurd. For instance, when you create a company, you have to pay a separate fee (~200eur) to a private "official journal" to publish the fact that you're creating a company. That's just plain racket, and that kind of things is everywhere.

this is entirely false, it does not cost a cent to get something published to the JO / create a micro-entreprise. source: have one. The only paperwork required is filling a couple internet forms + reporting how much you earned every month, again by internet.

[ohgodplsno]

>France is dying, because France can't have a private sector because of its regulations.

>France is dying to me. As an 18-yo, I'm seriously concerned on what to do for my future. The country has a super good education system (I would easily say the best in the world, by far) (just check out the ENS's Nobel prize / admissions ratio) but has no companies where people do any work. Most of the brilliant French minds go to work in other countries where it's possible to create and operate a company.

You're young, and you are, quite honestly, fully misinformed as to how things work in France. I know it, I live here, I was born here, I work here.

France is at the forefront of airplanes, rockets, AI, has hundreds of startups and old companies. The only places where the private sector cannot exist directly because of regulation are fully justified. Take the upcoming dismantlement of EDF in multiple companies, leaving 35% to the private sector. Handing off electricity distribution to private entities is quite possible the worst thing a country can do. This is an essential service. And so are all the other ones that limit the private sector. Everything else is absolutely fair game, and evidenced day after day. Things like visa applications ? Handled by private companies. URSAFF & Pole Emploi ? Mostly handled by private companies.

So, yes, we have a sizeable public sector. Yes, we have laws that prevent employers from abusing employees. Nothing that prevents you from starting your company, in any sector. It does prevent you from treating employees like shit. Hell, you can become a micro-entrepreneur today if you want.

[belzebalex]

Airplanes? You're right. Rockets? Ariane is being eaten alive by SpaceX, and the bureaucrats won't move fast enough. They can't even agree on Ariane 6. AI: Yeah France's really good at supplying engineers for Facebook. There's a reason why François Chollet and Yann LeCun have fled away.

Old companies in France don't build anything new. Maybe we do have startups, but do we have successful ones?

Concerning your last point, saying that the current 3000-pages laws are just "preventing you from treating people like shit" is a simplification.

[ohgodplsno]

>Ariane is being eaten alive by SpaceX, and the bureaucrats won't move fast enough. They can't even agree on Ariane 6

Arianespace and SpaceX are not even playing in the same court. Ariane 6 is made for heavy payloads, SpaceX can barely lift medium weight satellites.

Yann LeCun? He was literally already studying in Toronto in the 80s, he didn't flee France for Facebook.

As for startups, yes, we do. Are they unicorns? No, because contrary to HN's belief, they're an absolutely awful idea. Hell, I'm working in one, that's raising 5 millions, has clients throughout european countries and serves millions of daily users.

>Concerning your last point, saying that the current 3000-pages laws are just "preventing you from treating people like shit" is a simplification.

No, really, repeating the MEDEF's talking points without even fact checking them makes you look bad. Especially when it comes from Gattaz. 3000 pages includes the legislation AND the reglementation, including every single decree, as well as copies of the main jurisprudences. And the final 400 or so pages are mostly about what corresponds to what between versions of the law.

I literally have a copy of the work code with me. It's a sizeable book, yes. It's not 3000 pages.

However, there is a lot of added complexity because private entities want to add their own set of rules. So, instead of only knowing work law, you also have to know the 180 pages or so of Syntec when you start working in a french company that does IT. enjoy.

[balfirevic]

> Arianespace and SpaceX are not even playing in the same court. Ariane 6 is made for heavy payloads, SpaceX can barely lift medium weight satellites.

Ariane 6, which isn't even flying yet, is projected to lift 10350 kg - 21650 kg to LEO, depending on the version [0].

Falcon Heavy can lift 63800 kg to LEO in expendable mode [1].

You were indeed correct that they are not playing in the same court.

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_6

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_Heavy

[ohgodplsno]

SpaceX _pretends_ it can lift 63 tons.

In practice, their payloads have been a few tons at best. Whereas Ariane's track record with Ariane 5 is almost flawless and actually hitting those announced maximums.

But sure, trust the company that has regularly been lying on their abilities :)

[balfirevic]

> SpaceX _pretends_ it can lift 63 tons

You can't be fucking serious.

Falcon Heavy launched 6465 kg satellite to GTO, while landing all 3 boosters.

[belzebalex]

Seems like you know more about the legal code than I do.

Maybe am I wrong on the root causes. France's leadership in technology is still poor though: all the consumer hardware we use comes from Asia with software coming from the US (I'm sure you can find exceptions to that, and I'm genuinely curious about it), and that's a big problem. The only two french apps I use are the RATP's app and BlaBlaCar once every year.

You can't deny that we're too dependent on key technologies coming from abroad.

[ohgodplsno]

>Seems like you know more about the legal code than I do.

Unfortunately, legal battles with employers tend to cause that :)

> France's leadership in technology is still poor though

This is the root cause. It's not that France is bad technology wise. It's not that France lacks entrepreneurs. It's not that there's rules and laws. We literally have some of the best engineers in the world. Ask SF companies how happy they are to receive french employees. The level of someone coming out of an engineering school in France is much higher than most of the US.

It's that we have a mix of large companies capturing everything (hello Capgemini) and leaders that have no interest in technology (and helping said large comapnies capture everything).

The good news is, you can just wait for those decision makers to die off and we'll be good. By the time you come out of a DUT/Licence or engineering school if you're heading this way, many will be gone. And more will be gone with time.

[belzebalex]

Completely agree with all you said.

Although, I am friend with lots of people who are starting careers in politics, and they're all coming from Business School or Sciences Po. None of them knows about the fundamentals of nature and technology and I have no hope that they will be better than the current leaders we have :/

[user5994461]

France does have a strong defense and aerospace industry indeed. That's maybe the only thing that's still alive and doing well, propped up by military budget and large companies. Military related work is one of the rare domains that can't be externalized.

[mathh]

So ankward to find my stereotypical complaining fellow citizens here on HN.

[ekabod]

not 200 euros. It is around 80 euros.

[raverbashing]

As the other commenter says, and I'll add: I think French people love complaining while continuing on their bubble

A lot of countries have more regulations, but if you complain about every one of them and take it as an obstacle, yeah, really, nothing is going to come out of it.

France is not, by a long shot, the most bureaucratic country in the world. Wow 200eur to open a company? How much does that compare to, I don't know, a yearly salary? Of course it's stupid fee, the US is full of them as well but I don't see people whining.

People in France can't complain that the taxes are high and there's no money when every time some reforms are proposed such and such union goes to protest because god help them if the train conductors don't have high fashion vests right? Or complain about "loss of work rights" like, I don't know, a "right" to a lifetime employment.

[lm28469]

I'm French, French people are blind and most of them have no idea how easy it is to live in France compared to basically any other countries in the world. I guess it's a lack of perspective, anyone who spent any amount of time in eastern europe or in the US (places which aren't even that bad to begin with) would instantly see how lucky they are to live in France.

[jclos]

I hope you do realise that life is so easy because we are always complaining and not in spite of it. Worker rights and social safety nets did not magically appear out of thin air.

[lm28469]

Sure, but what we're seeing here is people complaining the other way: "We pay too much taxes", "there are too many regulations", &c.

[jbn]

This rings true to me, people complain they pay too much taxes, but then go on to rely widely on what the state provides and of course will cry in horror if anything is to be taken away. For instance (and I don't necessarily approve these policies, just stating recent examples) the 5 euro/month decrease in APL subsidy for students, or the cancellation of the CSG exemption for retirees.

[jclos]

Fair enough, in that sense yes I agree that a lot of people don't have a good understanding of the inner workings of their government.

[belzebalex]

I agree with some of that. But we can only live like that in the short term. We're currently China-sponsored: just look at the size of our debt! The 2021 budget is half funded by debt! One day will come when we'll have to make aggressive cuts in our way of life because France won't produce anything anymore.

[ldng]

A state does not work as a company or a home. It is a tad more complicated than that. First the debt is acquired at near 0% interest. Second, most of it is own to Europe not China. Finally, it will very probably be quietly defaulted in a few year and nobody will notice.

[lm28469]

Isn't it the same for most countries though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_external_...