
France bids to reverse tech brain drain - miraj
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34243967
======
onli
Maybe France really changed a lot. But be not mistaken: It is still the most
bureaucratic country on earth. Anecdote: I'm doing a PhD in France. Each year,
one has to do a re-inscription. In Germany, that means sending money to the
university. In France, that means sending in – let me count, I have them on my
desk – 17 documents, and to pay as well of course (preferred way: with a
check. Like it is 50 years ago). The documents ask for tons of information
they have already, like where I'm born. Included are things like "this
document and do two copies" \- it is still all analog. Absolutely
disrespectful of my time.

And this is not a single occurrence, I got told that at school they are asking
for documents for the kids as well each year, the same thing with information
they already have.

On the other hand, doing the taxes was not at all complicated and I got proper
help. This probably changed in the last years. It might be that this is a sign
of a changing system, but there is still a lot of crust.

~~~
fdej
My impression living in France for the last year is very similar to yours.
It's the mecca of paperwork (but doing taxes was relatively easy).

And if you're required to supply some documentation from another country,
you're likely to be required to get it translated to French by an official
translator (which not only takes time but can be quite expensive). In
contrast, I've never had a problem handing in German documents to authorities
in Sweden and Swedish documents to authorities in Austria. Documents in
English have certainly been accepted everywhere outside of France.

The catch-22s are the best. Renting an apartment requires that you have a
French bank account, and getting a French bank account requires that you
already have somewhere to live in France...

~~~
_of
The catch-22 applies to U.S. as well. Renting an apartment requires a credit
score, which you get from having a credit card, which you can only get by
having a credit score.

~~~
rifung
Well, that's not entirely true. I went through the process somewhat recently,
and you can get a credit card by depositing some money first and using that as
your max credit. That way the bank doesn't take any risk but you can build up
your credit.

~~~
JohnTHaller
It's called a secured credit card... as in it's secured by your balance with
the bank. Using it helps build your credit score and history so you can get a
standard credit card. I have a friend doing this now who's just never used
credit before.

It's more of an issue today since so many people just use their debit cards
whereas years ago people used cash and credit cards. If you wanted the
convenience of not carrying cash, you had to use your credit card since ATM
cards didn't have Mastercard/Visa logos and couldn't be used to pay for things
in stores. That's how today you wind up with someone in their late 20s that's
never had a credit card or a loan.

~~~
wnevets
> That's how today you wind up with someone in their late 20s that's never had
> a credit card or a loan.

This was me till I was 28. I was able to skip having to use a secured credit
card by getting a joint card with someone who already has great credit.

------
Mimu
I'm french, while it's true a lot of startup / opportunities in tech appeared
in the last few years, most of them don't pay anything.

They all advertise "good work ethic", "good environment", "good whatever" like
it justifies for you to be paid like a graduate for an experienced position.
You want talent? Pay the price.

~~~
renaudg
With a few exceptions, French employers are not the problem, they _do_ pay the
same price for you as in other European countries, more or less ! The
difference is that your average engineer in France costs them around 1.5-2.5
times the total take home pay, because of high, compulsory labor taxes.

In exchange, employees get as standard :

* a top notch, virtually free healthcare system with no concept of exclusions or "pre-conditions"

* Usually no student loans to repay because their higher education was free, unless they went for a private business/engineering school but that's still an order of magnitude cheaper than a US university.

* a comfortable (unsustainable ?) state pension later on.

* unemployment insurance that covers around 70% pay for months.

* 5 weeks holiday + public holidays

If you're US-based, think about your monthly budget and what goes towards
healthcare/co-pay, student loans, kids college fund, 401k, and building an
emergency fund in case you get laid off / severely ill. None of that is
strictly required in France (although some of it is available as extra private
coverage, and a good idea)

This is why cross-border salary comparisons are pointless, it's really apples
& oranges.

I'm French and living in London, and I'd personally rather have the freedom to
have a higher take-home pay and contribute towards the above items myself as I
see fit. But I'm not fooling myself thinking that because my take-home pay is
twice as high each month, the math is as simple as that. I know that I'm so
much more on my own here than at home...

~~~
drzaiusapelord
This a million times. Tech entrepreneurship works in the US and fails in other
states because we're in this sweet spot of low taxes and low corruption, with
high levels of education and easy access to a large and powerful economy.

Euro states have most of the above, but the high taxation and labor
protections strangles little shops and scares investors (would you invest in a
French startup? I wouldn't). Corrupt autocracies might have some of the above,
but the corruption strangles these companies as well (invest in a startup
where the assets could be nationalized instantly? Or having to pay a % of
profits to endless bribes?)

~~~
WildUtah
"Tech entrepreneurship works in the US and fails in other states because we're
in this sweet spot of low taxes and low corruption, with high levels of
education and easy access to a large and powerful economy."

Corruption in the USA is typical for west Europe or NE Asia and taxes plus
health care costs are slightly higher in the USA. Education levels are the
same or lower than typical in Europe and NE Asia. None of that is essential in
creating whatever advantage the USA has in tech entrepreneurship.

Labor 'protections' can strangle startups and a large economy with unified
rules, unified payment systems, a common language, and unified distribution
does help. But something about Silicon Valley in particular seems to be at the
root of the difference.

------
Fiahil
This "Reviens Léon" initiative is a masquerade and based on the grotesque idea
that expats are not french because they crossed a border. Countries are not
bound to frontiers anymore, if I'm growing a network out of my country, I'm
becoming an ambassador of the whole french culture. How is that less
beneficial to its international standing?

French companies and administrations deplore the lack of tech engineers, but
at the same time, they don't bother to reduce the overwhelming amount of
bureaucratie needed for foreigners (out of the EU) to come work in France.
Sounds like the definition of hypocrisy to me.

~~~
Joky
"Countries are not bound to frontiers anymore", well from a fiscal point of
view it is, you got a free education while you were in France, and now you
work and pay taxes in another country, which couldn't scale because it breaks
the French system

~~~
touristtam
I think he meant Nation rather than Country

------
seren
I don't have hard data, but only a feeling that it should be easier to
bootstrap in France than in US. Assuming you have worked previously, you can
get unemployment benefits, around 60% of your previous salary for a year, and
are covered by universal healthcare. So even if you need to have open heart
surgery, you won't bankrupt your family for the next 7 generations.

Actually someone (very brilliant) in my team is leaving next month to found a
start up.

That being said, I also have the feeling that if you have some initial
traction, it will be harder compared to US to get some early funding.

PS: I know that trying to compare to SV is a pretty futile exercise, since
globally this is a big outlier.

~~~
david_p
Our startup was created in France 2,5 years ago. Here is our experience:

Some of us started working on the project while getting unemployment benefits
(huge boost).

We get (very) affordable office spaces from the city and various incubators
(we are located in Paris).

We are able to live on first customers + 0% loans from the state + hundreds of
thousands of euros in various grants for innovation
([http://www.bpifrance.fr/](http://www.bpifrance.fr/)), so we don't need to
dilute our shares by raising funds too early.

We get no income taxes for the first years.

Employees have social security. Healthcare is cheap and very good.

Why would we want to start run company anywhere else?

~~~
gozo
"Why would we want to start run company anywhere else?"

Rent? And living expenses in general. It's going to be you largest expense
bootstrapping, especially since it's post tax. It also gets harder to invite
people you know to come work with you and getting a larger/better suited
apartment in general (location, contract terns, layout, furnished etc).

Not that this is that different from other big cities and I personally think
Paris is one of the few that lives up to the hype. Still not preferred for
early startups.

~~~
meatysnapper
In Berlin apartments are absurdly cheap. You can live on < 1000 euros a month
nicely. Contrast that with SF where you have your media $3700 a month
apartment!

------
pythondz
I grew up in France; gradutated from University (so not from French Ivy League
known as "Les Grandes Ecoles"). I'm currently in a consulting position and
tried to launch several startups-ideas at the end of my MS degree with the
"Auto-Entrepreneur" status and it was very difficult to find investors because
french people are very pessimistic by nature and the atmosphere created by the
state and the media is really oppresive. It means that if you fail (and I
failed), people around you will break your mood down (very hard to handle
that).

You need to find your team of talented people who will be ready to use their
own money to reduce costs. It's almost impossible to recruit someone you don't
personnaly know without a large amount of cash. Splitting equity seems to be
not attractive enough with french tech engineers...

The one and only advantage in France is that you can restart your life because
you can easily avoid indebtedness in case of failure.

~~~
renaudg
I've been a French expat in London for 5 years and I used to think like you.
Having recently reconnected with Paris' tech scene though, things have changed
_a lot_ wrt to failure and things like that.

And the difficulty of finding an engineer willing to be paid in equity only,
in a market where they can get both equity AND a good salary, is nothing
special to France believe me.

------
ThomPete
Interesting

So yesterday I posted this one
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10220487](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10220487)

which spawned more than 300 comments and apparently seems to be something
people care about.

My primary claim was that it wasn't as such the typical things like culture,
language etc that created the issues but also the way the EU is harmonizing
the markets and forcing change through the political system rather than the
civil society which is unfriendly to entrepreneurs unless they do very
predictable businesses.

But today i have seen several posts all related to Europes issues with
startups that is talking about things in this vein.

------
xacaxulu
As soon as French salaries come ANYWHERE CLOSE to similar salaries in London
or the US or even Berlin, then maybe I'd consider it. France just isn't
competitive on the salary front, hence the brain drain.

~~~
renaudg
I'm a French expat in London so I know what you're saying, but look at my post
above and consider what comes with the salary in France... you're not
comparing apples to apples here.

~~~
Jacqued
I'm not the GP but I hear your argument. It's a very compelling one when you
have a family or are getting older.

To a twenty-something however, pension & healthcare don't seem like very
compelling arguments compared with just being paid 80% more for the same job.
The only thing that has kept me in Paris until now is that all my friends live
here, but the London salaries attraction is getting stronger every month.

------
LBarret
Between the natural grumpiness of french complaining about their country and
the casual french bashing, it is hard to get some quality comments here.

------
vonnik
It will take one hundred years or another world war to clear out all the crap
that France makes businesses and individuals go through to live there and make
a living. Hollande's Socialists, while well meaning, are fairly incompetent
compared to past governments, and they are the last group on earth capable of
shrinking the French state and making the laws simpler. I lived in France for
14 years, through Chirac, Sarkozy and part of Hollande. They all say the same
thing, but France is in a vicious circle: unable to drive private sector
growth, they have to employ large numbers of people in the public sector,
which continuously adds to the burden of laws and regulations and complexity
that the private sector faces, slowing growth more. I'm sure that Macron is
busy coming up with a new, improved law that adds to the size and complexity
of the legal code in order to bring back tech talent. Good luck.

------
yodsanklai
Many people move abroad because the world is a big place and it's a lot of fun
to work and live in a remote country. For instance, I worked a few years in
the UK, in the US, and I would gladly go to Asia if I had the opportunity.
However I couldn't care less about tax, money or bureaucracy (although I"m
attached to my short commute time and long vacations).

Besides, I noticed that many (most?) French students from the top engineering
schools go to work in the financial industry (abroad but also in France). I
often wonder if this should be qualified as brain drain too.

------
zamalek
Something that I've noticed about South African brain drain is that it's
mostly motivated by people simply wanting a system that works for them - at
least in tech. If I'm working my ass off on a product that I believe in; I
don't want to be, frankly, babysitting the government.

From what I've read France is also in the business of destroying productivity
- if they want people back they need to start reconsidering overuse of red
tape.

~~~
renaudg
France has one of the highest per-worker productivity in the world, well ahead
of the US. You may want to read more

~~~
jazzyk
Yes, they are productive - just not when filling out all these government
forms.

~~~
zamalek
Exactly what I meant.

------
saiya-jin
France is lucrative mostly to french native speakers, who have quite a massive
phobia when they have to speak any other language rather than their own. It
looks ridiculous and shameful, especially when noone cares about speaking it
outside french bubble. The language had it's prime time long time ago and now
it's a mere curiosity. Not the prettiest nor easiest one to learn either. Then
there is amazing countryside, but that's hardly big enough motivation alone to
move in or stay.

Some french work really hard, I think their effectiveness at work is above EU
average. But they are socialists at their core - meaning all nice social
benefits on one side, but massive inefficiency on the other, on all levels of
government. In theory, there is no good reason why French should earn much
less compared to say Germans. In reality, the difference is HUGE and there are
good reasons for it. Market says it all :)

~~~
maelito
You should read the introduction of this article about this "mere curiosity".

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_language)

~~~
colinplamondon
290,000,000 speakers (including secondary speakers.) out of 7,000,000 people
on the planet.

4% of the planet. If 4% of America spoke a language, most of us wouldn't be in
much of a rush to localize.

Fortunately for French, the core native speakers in France are rich, and most
of the planet is still poor. As the rest of the planet catches up, "curiosity"
becomes more accurate over time.

~~~
bolaft
Secondary speakers are not people who learned French in school and live
outside a French speaking country. If you took French in high school in the US
you are not recorded in these numbers. Secondary speakers are people like, for
example, those who grew up in Morocco, speak French but have Arabic as a
mother tongue (for example).

Plus those numbers only account for speakers who can read and write. As I said
in another comment, the alphabetization of Africa over the next few decades is
expected to boost these numbers significantly.

So, as the rest of the planet catches up, "curiosity" becomes LESS accurate
over time.

------
ZeroGravitas
They could adopt a consistent EU response to economic migrants, and simply not
let them leave.

~~~
omegaham
How would you stop them? I'm imagining all sorts of possibilities, and all of
the effective ones require totalitarianism. You'll need a large surveillance
network to watch the "at-risk" folks, secret police to infiltrate /
interrogate / kill the smuggling networks that will arise, internal passports
to track movement, and a nice political structure that will be able to
maintain this without pesky things like folks trying to vote for "freedom" and
other nonsense like that. Maybe some reeducation camps to correct the
misguided ones who try to escape.

------
you_eeeeeediot
The problem is work ethic. I've been to France on business on 2-week stints
about a dozen times, and I can tell you from my experience they do not want to
work hard -- at anything. 6hr workdays, and at LEAST 1hr for lunch and worst
of all they look at you like you are the crazy one for wanting to get more
done each day.

~~~
david_p
I guess it depends on where you work, like all countries.

I have the exacts same experience as you working at a NYC insurance company (9
to 5 then go home).

I also know at lot of companies here (in France) where people work their asses
off everyday.

~~~
bryanlarsen
My current startup has a 9-5 culture, and we get a lot more done than any
other startup I've worked for. No ping-pong, no long lunch breaks, no
watercooler discussions, much less surfing on company time. I get more done in
8 hours than I used to get done in 12, and I get an extra 4 hours with my
family.

~~~
SnacksOnAPlane
I find that ping-pong and watercooler discussions are necessary as breaks.
Otherwise you burn out and you only get, say, 4 hours of real work done in an
8-hour day.

~~~
bryanlarsen
Breaks are still necessary, but they're a lot less frequent and a lot shorter.

