
How I got the French Tech Visa to start my company in France - christpetron
https://christianpetroske.com/how-i-got-the-french-tech-visa-to-start-my-company-in-france/
======
Uberphallus
Honestly, this reads as those books titled "How to make money selling books on
Amazon".

Living in France, I can tell, France is very startup hostile.

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

The only way a small tech company can make any money and be sustainable (let
alone grow) is having all employees as associates (with all the organizational
problems that such thing will bring) and take dividends instead of salaries,
otherwise literally more than half of the salary is gone in taxes.

And of course, this is all having their own day job, or taking a "company
creation" sabbatical year, which is the only actually helpful thing for
startups you'll find in France. You can take a year off from your job, try to
create a company, and after the year your employer has to take you back in the
same position (if you want, obviously). You need to have worked a number of
years before, both in global and with your current employer, though.

VC culture is close to non existing, so you need very good connections to have
investors, and those connections often times aren't in France. Financial and
investing groups in France are very conservative.

Literally all new companies I've seen founded are like that, and from those
that live longer than a year, about 50% move their HQ elsewhere, normally the
place where the funding came from.

With the numbers we made back in the day (we were 5), the gap from "we're
making some money on the side" to "we need to hire someone who isn't a
founder" was about €300,000 yearly in extra revenue. Otherwise it wasn't worth
it.

~~~
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.

~~~
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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_6)

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

~~~
ohgodplsno
Yeah. 6400kg. 6.4 tons. Not 63. Nor the 26 they pretend they can do on GTO

~~~
balfirevic
Are you at all familiar with the payload scaling between different orbits and
the payload penalty for reusability?

------
victor106
From what a few of my colleagues told me: France is very racist. Apparently
this is true in most of Europe. Everything looks okay on the surface but they
are deep racial undertones. They tell me that believe it or not America is the
one of the least racist countries. It does not mean there’s no racism in
America just that it’s lesser.

It’s easy for immigrants to assimilate into society in America than most
places in EU. Till that changes no matter how easy it is to get a startup visa
it won’t make a difference.

I don’t know how true that is. Can someone with more experience please
validate?

~~~
tasogare
> France is very racist

Literally the biggest lie I read here for a long time. Yeah France is so
racist that 20% of the population is of foreign non-white ancestry,
nationality is easy to get (notably got automatic if botn on national soil),
no welfare programs discriminates on nationality basis, illegal aliens are
rarely expelled (being sentenced is not more automatic ground for it), there
is laws forbidding criticizing immigration, land are given for cheap to build
foreign religious buildings, etc. If anything France isn’t putting it’s
original citizens first enough. The super high tax rates explained elsewhere
is in great part used to fund immigrants life.

Also from the point of view of most French, the important thing is speaking
good French and integrating well with our culture, regardless of skin color.

~~~
actuator
Btw, just because people are immigrating, it doesn't mean racism is low.
Economic opportunities and better quality of life might be the main drivers,
even at the cost of facing discrimination.

Most of the French immigrants are from erstwhile French colonies like in the
case of Britain, racism and exploitation of their homelands didn't stop them
from moving to seek better life.

------
jwr
Please write a blog post with a more complete list of podcasts that you listen
to and sites that you read!

It turns out it is surprisingly difficult to find pointers to sites and
podcasts if you speak French, but do not live in France. The internet is
really good at keeping us in our bubbles, making a lot of assumptions on
geolocated IPs.

As a side note, I will add that there is one thing that is somewhat
problematic about the French business culture, namely that French companies
will really go out of their way to deal only with other French companies. It
is very difficult to do business with France because of this. It does help if
you speak fluent French, but even then, unless you are a French business, you
are at a big disadvantage and your product needs to be _really_ much better
than the competition. I guess in the case of the OP this worked well, because
the business was based in France after all.

~~~
bondant
> Please write a blog post with a more complete list of podcasts that you
> listen to and sites that you read!

>It turns out it is surprisingly difficult to find pointers to sites and
podcasts if you speak French, but do not live in France. The internet is
really good at keeping us in our bubbles, making a lot of assumptions on
geolocated IPs.

If you have a good level in french, I would advise you to listen to France
Culture. I think the programmes are quite good, I personally really liked the
audio series, for instance "L'incroyable expédition de Corentin Tréguier au
Congo". Another interesting programme of this summer is the ongoing interviews
with "modern mercenaries/privateer" [3]

[1]
[https://www.franceculture.fr/emissions](https://www.franceculture.fr/emissions)

[2] [https://www.franceculture.fr/emissions/lincroyable-
expeditio...](https://www.franceculture.fr/emissions/lincroyable-expedition-
de-corentin-treguier-au-congo)

[3] [https://www.franceculture.fr/emissions/le-monde-des-
espions-...](https://www.franceculture.fr/emissions/le-monde-des-espions-
saison-2-les-nouveaux-corsaires/saison-29-06-2020-23-08-2020)

------
maxmouchet
We often hear stories on how hard it is to start a business in France. As a
French, I'd like to hear how _easy_ it is in other countries (UK, US?). For
example, what are the costs, the amount of paperwork...

~~~
nicbou
I have done it in Germany. I had to register my website as a business, and
documented how to do it on that same website.

Honestly, it wasn't so hard, and I can honestly say that I made it a little
easier. The hardest part was taxes, and the honest solution is "hire a tax
advisor, pay 300€ a year, be done with it".

The biggest problem for me is the cost of health insurance. As a self-employed
person, you pay double. I pay 850€ a month in health insurance, and 550€ a
month in rent. The fix is to switch to private health insurance, but that has
its own caveats.

Here's an overview of what must be done:
[https://allaboutberlin.com/guides/start-a-business-in-
german...](https://allaboutberlin.com/guides/start-a-business-in-germany)

[https://allaboutberlin.com/guides/become-a-freelancer-in-
ger...](https://allaboutberlin.com/guides/become-a-freelancer-in-germany)

~~~
balfirevic
> As a self-employed person, you pay double.

What do you mean, pay double? If you mean that, with regular employment, your
"employer pays half" \- that is just an accounting trick and you actually pay
all of it.

~~~
nicbou
You pay twice as much as regular employees, whose employers cover half of it.
It's not an accounting trick, since the half the employer pays is not included
in your net income. The same applies to public pension payments, although
freelancers can opt out of them.

For those who are curious, I wrote a plain English introduction to German
health insurance: [https://allaboutberlin.com/guides/german-health-
insurance](https://allaboutberlin.com/guides/german-health-insurance)

~~~
balfirevic
> since the half the employer pays is not included in your net income

There is a total cost for employer for a particular employee and the take-home
pay for that employee. Where between those two we put a number that's called
"your net income" is just arbitrary convention.

Employer knows how much the total cost will be when they negotiate the salary.
It's all the same to them if the entire amount goes to you personally and then
you use it to pay health insurance, or they first pay some of that amount to
health insurance and then give the rest to you.

------
seapunk
Hi Christian, welcome to France.

My suggestion to add to your French podcasts list:

Tête à Tech - [https://teteatech.fr/](https://teteatech.fr/)

This is my favorite podcast about technology by Awa Ndiaye and Jeremy Lezac.

Enjoy the croissants.

------
not_a_moth
Thank you for sharing these details, however what you've described seems to
fall under "visa abuse" in eyes of developed countries who offer startup
visas... mocking up something one weekend in order to go live in the country
certainly goes against the spirit of these visas.

------
CalRobert
For those interested in moving to Europe, seedtable maintains a list of
European Tech Visas which could be handy

[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wLPGB2BdRxHWbdOXXtKA...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wLPGB2BdRxHWbdOXXtKAoCQimY_4RjBjRH8Grv3U0tI/edit?ck_subscriber_id=855671361#gid=0)

------
therealmarv
Don't. There are so many other countries with great programmers in Europe. I
would go with Bulgaria or Romania when EU is a requirement. Otherwise I would
go to Georgia (the country).

First row countries like France or Germany are start up hostile.

------
rootsudo
I'm debating doing something similar for Japan. It's always nice to read how
it is around the world.

In Japan, it is "Fairly" easy, provided you know Japanese and Japanese
Culture.

For "hostility" a-lot of it comes under not knowing how to do things the
Japanese way and finding an office location. Though there are government city
sponsored incubators.

Mostly though, it's an excuse to just pay money to get a visa and residency,
that can turn permanent.

------
fredo
Well I lived in US and created a company in Paris. US administration didn't
look simpler to me... Tax in NYC were huge and it didn't include the schools
for my kids. If you're 18 yr old and care only about your own needs, go to US
(if you can get a visa, remember trump don't like foreigners and 401k). France
is better when you want a family or life conditions of a rich country.

~~~
refurb
NYC is arguably the highest taxes locale in the US.

Try the same comparison with say, Seattle.

------
rmason
I'm intrigued on how it's just the opposite of the United States. Here if you
get accepted into an incubator they pay you. In France you pay them!

If France really wanted foreigners to start companies there why wouldn't they
make the tech visa as close to free and frictionless as possible?

~~~
csomar
See my comment over here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24233291](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24233291)

Some of these incubators are _gaming_ the system to make money. I'd not be
surprised if they are giving these approvals to people who should not be
eligible (ie: people not interested in starting a startup).

~~~
fakedang
Incidentally like the author of the linked article. He states he lifted off
the idea template for his first startup from Canva. Fortunately for him, he
lucked out because he found another startup co-founder for an actual idea much
later on.

------
smnrchrds
French Talent Passport has streams for employees as well as founders. Does
anyone know what happens if you use the employee stream and then lose your
job, e.g. because the company who hired you has gone under? Do you have to
leave France immediately, or is there a grace period for you to find another
job?

Also, does France have similar to Permanent Residency in other countries? How
long do you need to live in France before you can obtain a status that allows
you to stay, live, and switch employers in France and does not depend on
keeping your job?

~~~
ttwy2020
I have the Talent Passport as an employee, and my first company went under. I
was lucky to find another job before quitting, but generally, there is no
obligation to "leave France immediately".

~~~
lma21
Also, if you've worked for at least 6 months in the past 2 years and your
company went under / you got fired / the company did not renew your CDD
(temporary contract) / you had to quit because your SO is moving, you're given
unemployment benefits (whether you're French or not) as well as help to get
back to employment.

------
lifeisstillgood
I suspect my first question is - does it matter now, post-COVID. Is there any
investment money out there still? If I get a visa, have a plan, is there
anyway to raise enough money to even keep me in baguettes?

~~~
stunt
Many startups were still founded during 2008 recession. There are new needs
after every crisis, and entrepreneurs just have more time and motivation to
build something. Investors also try to diversify their capital like always.
They're just more careful now. Crisis definitely has a negative impact
overall. But, it can't stop everyone.

[https://news.crunchbase.com/news/lessons-from-2008-how-
the-d...](https://news.crunchbase.com/news/lessons-from-2008-how-the-downturn-
impacted-funding-two-to-four-years-out/)

[https://mattermark.com/2007-2009-financial-crisis-
surprising...](https://mattermark.com/2007-2009-financial-crisis-surprisingly-
kind-tech-startups/)

------
csomar
tl;dr: France made a program where they defer idea/talent assessment to third-
party "incubators". Some of these guys are now taking the opportunity to give
you the approval for a "fee". That's around 5.000 euros.

ps: UK/Hong Kong have similar programs.

------
x87678r
Taxes and paperwork in France (and Europe) really doesn't sound that bad to
me. What does sound very different are the labor laws.

You can't just fire someone because its illegal to do so. You can't just hire
a bunch of people quickly because people dont switch jobs as often. The team
can't work 80 hrs a week because that isn't allowed either.

~~~
amarka
What's worse is that I heard rumors they don't allow slave labor either. Labor
laws, ugh, they're the worst.

~~~
x87678r
OK then, in your opinion what are the main reasons there are many more
successful tech companies in the US vs EU?

