[nerbert]

It’s very common for French people to negate the advantages of the system they live in. France makes it easy to start a company and find seed investment. Paperwork became very limited over the years. People who describe France as startup hostile country live in the past (15-20 years ago)

[throwaway4747l]

You're right, with the caveat that France as a country with a strong social safety net and the best healthcare system in the world© is also a thing of the past. We're on our way to become more like the US each passing day, make of that what you will.

[jbn]

w.r.t "best healthcare system in the world" there are only 2 countries that think this of their healthcare: France (because people think it's free... it is not) and the US (because mostly of the quality of emergency medecine IMHO). Of course both are wrong, and it is a meaningless contest anyway.

[AlchemistCamp]

So, let's say you're bootstrapping a new business and earning 1500€/month as a solo operator with no employees. How much does the overhead of the endeavor cost you?

The costs are minimal in every country I've worked in so far, but I know it's different in others.

Would you at least be able to get started for under 500€ and live off of your income in France as long as you lived in a low cost area and didn't have family or medical expenses?

[jcelerier]

> So, let's say you're bootstrapping a new business and earning 1500€/month as a solo operator with no employees. How much does the overhead of the endeavor cost you?

If you are earning 1500€ per month you can just be a "micro-company" (this works up to 75k€ per year of gross income). You'll get taxed roughly 25% on that income, and have a fixed fee depending on the city you live - for me it's around 400€ / year for instance. Everything is done by internet, the only thing you have to do is report every month on the state website how much you earned last month, which takes roughly 30 seconds if you have proper accounting.

[AlchemistCamp]

400€ / year is very doable! That bodes well for France's future bootstrapped entrepreneurs.

[krstf13]

To add to what the parent wrote, depending on your situation (eg unemployment) when your creating your micro-company, you get a grace period (up to 2 years, I believe) during which your fees are substantially reduced. And the fees include social security, with (since recently) roughly the same benefits as regular employees (except for compensation of lost revenues in case of illness, which is more complicated).