[Uberphallus]

> not half of the salary

More than half if you consider taxes on the company. A 30k salary costs the company about 80k. Sure, there are loads of social services, but still. In the company I created we did the work ourselves, and sometimes hired freelancers for certain things we're not familiar/experts in, but without external funding taking one single employee is a major blow to the accouting of a small company.

With 20 people you'll soon need to have a comité d'entreprise :P

> Most startup in France don’t have « all employees as associate », that makes no sense to me.

That's the only way to operate if you don't get external funding.

> I actually don’t see French startups moving there HQ somewhere else, so I wonder where that affirmation came from...

I'm sure Paris is different, but that's a common pattern for companies founded around Sophia Antipolis, the "Silicon Valley" of France. The startups that tend to stay it's because they have local clients, the rest often leave or die, with notable exceptions (LivePepper comes to mind).

> Aren’t you just repeating some stereotypes you heard elsewhere? If France were as hostile as you pictured it, how would it have such a dense startup ecosystem and even (God forbids!) some very successful ones?

Nope, I insist, I'm sure Paris is different, but most people don't live in Paris. Also dense compared to where? The Netherlands or Belgium are denser.

[bouzouk]

I’m sorry but no: a 30k salary does not cost the company 80k! It costs around 41k, or 49k if you take into account employee taxes (here is a simulator from the French government: https://entreprise.pole-emploi.fr/cout-salarie/).

« Comité d’entreprise » are for 50+ employees and not 20.

What’s the use in throwing around fake numbers just to make your point?

Even if that sure must be a nice place to live, that is the first time I heard Sophia Antipolis being the « Silicon Valley of France » :) Yes France startup ecosystem is highly polarized around Paris. But hey, just like Silicon Valley right? That’s a very different problem.

[js4ever]

I just use the link you have provided, if you fill the last field (net salary after tax, what is really paid to the bank account of the employee) to 30k/year, the total cost for employer is 57,950€. And not 41k like you mentioned

[toto444]

30K net / year is a decent salary in France considering it you don't have to save for retirement, childcare is cheap, school is free, uni is free, health insurance is cheap and you don't have to save too much in case you are unemployed because the benefits are decent.

[davidivadavid]

Oh so some people still believe you don't have to save for retirement in France. The legend lives on.

[Uberphallus]

It was a typo, I meant 40k costs 80k, and according to the simulator it's 72k (company pays 72k, employee gets 40k). It doesn't include Syntec as collective agreement but I don't think the results would be much different. So my bad, but still not far off. This level of fiscal pressure is on par with Scandinavian countries, to put it in perspective.

That's absolutely bonkers for a startup that is actually starting, as there's little to no cash flow.

Note I'm not defending lowering taxes, but in other countries companies have exemptions and/or reductions according to company age, revenue or activity sector (e.g. https://business.gov.nl/subsidy/tax-relief-new-companies/). That encourages companies to actually have a chance to take off and continue paying taxes, rather than suffocate them from the get go.

In France, the most I've seen are reductions applicable to taxe fonciere for new company, which is a tax too small to even matter.

Of course, if you have the contacts willing to invest, my whole point is moot.

> that is the first time I heard Sophia Antipolis being the « Silicon Valley of France »

Come over and they won't stop telling you :)

[wink]

From what I heard France has strong worker protection laws, even stronger than Germany. Do you think this is/could be a problem for startups?

I am absolutely against the US way of just firing people, but I accept the realism of small businesses and startups where you -as en employee- simply can't take for granted that your job (or company) will exist in 5 or even 2-3 years.

IIRC in Germany we have exceptions for <10 employees, for example.

[smcphile]

> From what I heard France has strong worker protection laws, even stronger than Germany. Do you think this is/could be a problem for startups?

Yes, France has strong worker protection laws, but if someone is found to have been abusively fired there’s a cap on how much they can sue for. The amount is based on how long they’ve been with the company. For example, after 2 years, the amount is 3 months salary, after 5 years, 6 months salary. The complete table is here: https://droit-finances.commentcamarche.com/faq/54743-bareme-...

[pkaye]

If an employer has layoffs what kind of severance does the employee get?

[smcphile]

It depends, there's no simple, standard answer.

Layoffs in France correspond with the idea of a "licenciement économique" and the details of how that is managed are presented here: https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/N481 .

Simply put, it's a negotiated process between the company, union representatives, and the government / legal representatives.

In France, layoffs are difficult to do if a company is making money, but can be done to keep a company from losing money or shutting down or moving somewhere else (i.e. another country).