[yodsanklai]

> The amount of taxes a company has to pay and the amount of paperwork to do (or money to delegate it) is just absurd.

Whenever topics on France arise on HN, it's amusing to see many opinionated/politically biased comments from French people.

I personally have no idea on how France compare with other countries as far as startup creation go, but I'd take with a pinch of salt any comments making very strong claims.

[mardifoufs]

It's crazy to see how defensive some people get! Especially when any criticism of EU countries gets brought up. I get that some of the criticism is unwarranted. But as an outsider with intimitate knowledge of both europe (france in particular) and north america, it's just mind boggling to see the difference between the HN/online discourse and reality.

France is an amazing country don't get me wrong, but you can't just sweep everything under the rug just because it has good social safety nets. Living in a place with a strong french diaspora and having tons fo family members living in france, the things I hear the most from them are the grim employment prospects, the lack of opportunities and a hopelessly stagnant economy. And this was before COVID.

Lets also not forget the extreme levels of intergenerational, hard to escape destitution minorities living in the Cités experience that make even america look good when it comes to social mobility for it's minorities. And, while I'm not a fan of the (overused) concept, France has neocolonialism as a foundation of its exploitative african policy. There's also the rampant homophobia, ingrained misogyny, very, very casual racism... you get my point

There are even comments saying, unironically, "if you aren't happy just move instead of complaining". I couldn't imagine that type of argument not getting absolutely destroyed if it was a thread about the US, the UK or Canada. I guess we just hear a lot more coming from english speaking countries, which skew how we view countries we don't hear problems from.

[yodsanklai]

> I couldn't imagine that type of argument not getting absolutely destroyed if it was a thread about the US, the UK or Canada.

I think it's what I was trying to say with my initial comment. The occasional discussions involving US politics seem to be moderated more effectively.

[non-entity]

You're amused to see French people have strong opinions on their own nations' politics?

[yodsanklai]

Being French, I'm amused to see on HN the same stereotyped arguments and exaggerations we hear over and over in the local left/right debate.

[Juliate]

Well, we're not French for nothing. :p