Does anyone know how big of an impediment is not knowing French?
EDIT: I should have articulated my question better by saying "in the short term." I agree its foolish to not learn the local language if you plan on staying. But if the office language is French that is going to be almost a non-starter for someone who doesn't already speak it.
It can be intimidating enough changing jobs in your native language. I know Sweden and Berlin use English as the lingua-franca of the office. I just don't know about the French tech scene.
massive... I am actually relocating to France in a few days. French lessons are very high on the list, as few people want to speak English day-to-day. The workplace might be different, and Paris might be different, but for the rest - French is a must. The second amendment of the french constitution reads "The language of the Republic is French" they take their language seriously.
Won't it be a problem when looking for funds though? People who can fund startups tend to be a bit older and might not have a good level of English (or will simply be more likely to help the startup if they can communicate in French).
You raise an interesting point. I mostly answered from the point of view of an engineer, for whom it's not the biggest issue not to speak french.
For a founder though it'd make things more complicated. They'd need to have someone close who speaks french, especially since there is a bunch of paperwork to do to start a company here and some physical interactions with french administration where english speaking might not be guaranteed.
They will also be more impressed and glad that some foreigner is trying to create value in their country. I don't think language is really a barrier in this case.
Definitely not a problem with French investors. They're business people who will of course speak English.
The real challenge for a non-French speaking founder would mainly be in dealings with local authorities. You can't expect public servants to speak any English or have any English-translated documentation / forms available.
I believe this is entirely too dismissive of a very complex and important subject.
As a native English speaker living in France, I would strongly advise anyone considering living and working here that it is absolutely critical to speak, read, and write a competent level of French if one is to be successful.
Sure, if you're going to just live in the center of Paris and spend all your time in the Expat crowd, you can get by, but it's disingenuous to claim that someone wouldn't be at a significant disadvantage in a French company if they only speak English.
I'm aware of several companies that claim they operate in English, but what this really means is that formal meetings and (some) emails are written in English, and all other conversation is in French.
I was in Berlin, and I was never spoken to in German (since I don't really look German), and I would ask the person if they spoke English just to be polite before I started speaking to them, and they would almost get offended. Actually, I hardly heard any German being spoken.
On the contrary, in Warsaw I had problems getting basic directions in English even if I asked young people on the street. They were either self-conscious or didn't know English, but either way they wouldn't speak to me in English. When I went to mini-markets and places where you'd find less educated people at the cash register, absolutely zero. Not even "bag".
My point wasn't that it's not a problem in the long term, but that in some countries it's also a problem in the short term.
In Poland I really felt unwelcomed on many occasions. The fact that they're extremely nationalistic doesn't help, I guess. I was surprised that even 18-year-olds wouldn't speak English to me. I'm now learning Polish.
That's odd, I felt very welcome when I was there hiking this summer. But then it might not have been in the same areas, plus the usual difference between the country and cities.
If you are happy to live in an expat bubble then it works, but if you want to connect with the locals it doesn't. Most friend groups won't change their language to english to include you.
In Warsaw and Wroclaw, if I was brought in by one of the group, the whole group would speak English to not be rude. If it's random people, they wouldn't. Single guys or girls not in a group will speak English to you if you're hanging out with them.
I think it largely depends on who it is you're dealing with.
"uneducated" people and the elderly will be less likely to speak or wanting to speak English (cashiers are the worse, in my experience). Most young people will speak English. Programmers and startup people all speak English. Doctors speak English, etc.
From dating a Polish girl, and meeting some of her relatives and friends in Poland, I'd say it's mostly a problem of confidence. Once they started talking there was rarely a problem (at least for non-rare words), but a lot of them didn't speak English to non-Poles often enough to feel like they actually could.
I too believe that young people are just self-conscious, perhaps because they're not used to speaking it.
A lot of old people dislike foreigners to a certain extend, however, and I bet some of them wouldn't speak it on purpose even if they could. For instance, an old lady at a drugstore complained to the cashier at the register because I took too long picking some medicine, while "there were Poles waiting in line".
Let's just say that Berlin was more foreign-friendly in my experience.
I've met people who did well in Hong Kong for decades without learning the local language (Cantonese) and then haven't bothered to learn Mandarin since China took control 20 years ago.
It's pretty doable in Sweden, too. In Japan, Russia or Argentina, though, you'd be at an enormous disadvantage.
To be fair, HK is bilingual, at least in the sense that all government/utility/etc. forms are available in both Cantonese and English (these days also in Simplified Chinese).
Article 9 of the Basic Law stipulates:
"In addition to the Chinese language, English may also be used as an official language by the executive authorities, legislature and judiciary of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region."
So, it's quite easy to get along without Cantonese or Mandarin (or without English, for that matter).
However, without Cantonese, one only has limited access to what's going on in politics, civil society, show biz, etc.
In Switzerland (we already have 4 local languages) it is very common for people not to speak the local language. I have seen people leaving in Geneva for more than 20 years and still not speaking french. The swiss government is even translating the laws in English for foreigners.
If you live in Paris, you would probably be fine, but outside Paris you may have hard time finding people speaking english (that is, in the street, shops, etc). Sadly, foreign languages are not proper priorities in our education.
I lived in Rennes, and frequently visited Paris. Your post summarizes my experiences exactly. What's more--I learned French in university, but my accent and the native accent were mutually unintelligible for quite a long time.
Given France history (and bagage with England), many French people are very proud of their language. I believe that if one wants to really enjoy France, develop good friendships there, etc., one has to speak French. Or at least be learning it.
French here. You have to learn french, people in the french administration aren't going to communicate with in you English.
Obviously in Paris more and more people know English since it's a touristic area. But it isn't like Berlin,Amsterdam or Brussels where you can live with very little local language knowledge. Correct french is a pain in the ass to learn, the language is needlessly complicated.
Frankly If I were a "foreigner" (outside the EU) who wants to move to a non English speaking European country, I'd go to Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden or Austria. I lived and worked in all these countries without problem and with little knowledge of the local language.
Just don't come here with 0 french and expect to find work, that's not realistic. If you are an "expat" (i.e. you already have a guaranteed job in France), then by all means...
I'm sorry, but ... typical French reaction (I'm French myself)
The government and the administration is trying to improve the climate on founders/visa/startups/tech, and yes, it's far from being perfect and there are a lot of pieces missing and a lot that could be improved, but, at least, they seem to be trying.
And then you come, and just tell people they should go somewhere else "because it will be too hard".
So, I'm all for warning that it won't be all pink and easy, but I don't think it ought to be as hard as you seem to imply.
One thing which is definitely true is learning a few words and know how to say "Hi" in French and that you don't know the language will go a long way.
After, that, if you feel like you want to stay in the country, you will naturally go towards learning the language anyway.
I lived 7 years in the Netherlands, and you can go mostly fine with just English (even though, in some more rural areas, it can still be hard despite the reputation of the country), but learning Dutch helped me integrate and "unlock" situations where English would not have been enough, just because it showed to the people involved I was willing to integrate better in the country and make efforts to be understood.
I think the problem is that there is a complete disconnect between those in government that are "trying" as you say, and those who execute the day to day bureaucracy.
Let's take an example directly from this announcement:
"Apply to the French Tech Visa for Investors: Contact your local French Consulate or the local "Prefecture" (if you already reside in France) and follow the general route to apply for a "Passeport Talent"
Only those who live here will understand what this entails. The prefecture is a branch of regional government that is totally gridlocked with unnecessary paperwork.
- they tell you explicitly you can contact the consulate, that's when you're not in France
- If you're already in France, there is a big chance you've already been in contact with the prefecture, so you'll know what it is. Besides, it's very googleable.
Finally, yes, the prefecture is definitely not the best place to hang out, but I'd be surprised if they did not get very precise and direct instructions on how to take care of those candidates.
Well, getting lost in translation is something normal, isn't it? I have been 1 year in Germany and I tried to learn German. If you don't want to learn a new culture/language it's going to be difficult for sure. Why a whole country should adapt to you?
Some english speaking guys don't want to make effort to adapt and I really think that they miss the most important & fun part of travelling/living abroad.
You can raise money in english in France. No issue on that.
We have nice startup here and nice developpers. But you can also find nice thinghs in other EU countries. Business is everywhere...
Real question for me is that how good french people are at speaking English? If I go there, I wouldn't be able to speak any French on day 1, so It would be nice if there is a decent percentage of people speaking English so that I get by until I learn Essential French.
When compared to a country that has high levels of English literacy such as the Netherlands, there's a major difference here.
You will be able to get by just fine in Paris for things like restaurants and hotels, but as soon as you have to deal with the government in any fashion, you absolutely must speak French.
In places other than Paris and the tourist areas of some major cities, it will be very difficult if you don't speak any French.
> Real question for me is that how good french people are at speaking English?
Mostly irrelevant unfortunately, because the French will expect you to speak French once you are in France. I've experienced this many times in Paris among French people I know can speak English well enough to have a conversation.
I've said this before in another relocation thread: I'm an expat working in Paris in tech. Sure, everybody at work is able to speak broken English, but most don't enjoy it. Of other expats I know, the ones who went to the effort of learning French, even just the basics (and are working on improving it), are happy here. The ones who came without intending to learn French are miserable. Many French people aren't exactly welcoming to people who don't show effort. If you work in a startup, your ten French colleagues won't happily switch to English during lunch breaks just so you can follow the conversation. (As opposed to Scandinavia, say.)
You're welcome to come, it's great here. But don't come without wanting to learn French. You'll be unhappy.
Human brains are wired to soak up languages. Anybody immersed in another language making a minimum effort, will be fluent enough in six months.
People who say they have experienced the contrary typically go to great length to speak and read their native tongue. It doesn't matter how much you tried at home with a book etc... Once you're immersed and have made the decision to understand and speak the local language, it's like your brain goes on steroid. It is difficult to imagine until you've experienced it.
To summarize:
It depends where you'll end up and which tech area you're specialized in.
Paris is often a good spot, south east as well (Monaco, Cannes, Nice) if you're specialized in hardware.
Regarding the south-east part, english might not be too much of a problem since international tourism is a big part of the local economy, I even heard that Google used to look for a spot there until some local political figure blew it up due to personal interests conflicts.
Also for the record, Paul Allen's yacht is frequently seen cruising around when it's time for the Cannes festival.
Apropos of this, I was in Paris recently at a startup event, and was pleasantly shocked at the sheer number of startups and people I saw doing things.
This is a good move by the French, and will help attract entrepreneurs away from other countries (particularly like those just across the channel currently inflicting generational economic damage on themselves.)
The issue is why can't France even attract engineers and investors from WITHIN the Eurozone, these people don't need Visa. The issue is elsewhere, not in the pool of engineers. France can't even retain its own engineers.
Why would France chase an engineer in Germany? That has to be considerably more expensive then acquiring talent from abroad.
Just eyeballing this would indicate going after a German or Fin would likely cost more, because 1. They have similar programs, 2. They don't care about Visas and therefore are less likely to be invested in being or staying in France long-term. If France gives me a visa you can be sure I'm there for more than just my business. 3. Language. 270+ million people speak French, so why not pull from countries and cultures that have some shared history and association.
Seems to me this makes way more sense for France than chasing down Germans, Dutch, Fins or anyone else local.
There's actually quite a lot of competition within EU, and France is not too shameful in that competition. It's hard to compete with London which is undoubtedly the #1 tech hub in Europe, but aside from that, Paris is top notch.
I would still pick Berlin or Amsterdam over France. Maybe even Sweden or Finland because of the average English language level spoken in those countries even though the startup scene there is smaller than Paris.
We've actually had this welfare for 70 years, and the harm was supposed to come any minute now for all this time. Ultimately, its demise is likely going to come from the propaganda against it rather from it actually being a problem.
Who says you haven't seen harm? You're erecting a straw-man.
Also, you have to factor in that when the coffers are empty, France may be more willing to sell weapons abroad... So maybe it's not France that sees that harm.
Ok, is there some French Defamation League, downvote-brigade choosing to censor realities it dislikes, rather than respond?
I note I have down-voted responses to replies that do not have further responses. Hence, from my point of view, it seems when the argument got difficult, down-voting was resorted to..
note: this comment was also down-voted within 5 minutes, again without comment. Those who never comment, never run the risk of malicious down-votes.
Even if what you said was true, what would be the point of a strong economy if people cannot have healthcare? I'd rather have a less strong economy and better health for everyone.
Not surprisingly, it helps the economy: people dont lose their savings, jobs and houses when they get sick in Europe.
France, or Paris? The joke my former (Parisian) co-worker used to tell was that he missed everything about Paris except the Parisians. I've heard nice things about Lyon: Largish city, easily accessible, and not full of Parisians.
I could say the same about San Francisco and I lived there for a couple of decades. It is insanely crowded now with Uber drivers cutting through neighborhoods obeying their GPS overlord.
As for Paris, I love Paris but then I'd have a hard time getting work done there. Being near would be enough. I worked in Milan and Geneva and would take the train into Paris for the weekend but not for work.
because London is sat next door with considerably higher salaries, and everyone there speaks English
not to mention setting up a company costs £14, 20% corporation tax (dropping to 17%), tax back for individuals investing in SEIS companies (which is easy for a firm apply for), and R&D tax credits
There's been a lot of nice french initiatives to promote tech, in the last few years. It's still hard to overcome the anglosphere bias and to promote internationally, but from the inside it's still a nice atmosphere.
As someone from the UK, my main reason for not moving anywhere else in Europe is the language barrier. I'm not even sure I'm capable of learning another language; 5 years in school trying to learn French + German, and can still only put together about two sentences. From what I remember, no one else seemed to really pick up the languages either.
I thought the same of myself until I actually tried. At 30 I started learning chinese full time for two years and eventually became fluent. It's possible, but you've got to take time off and dedicate yourself and immerse without using your mother tongue.
It might help if you were immersed in it, as opposed to a small amount of time in school. But would you be able to function those first few months, that's the question.
Learning a language in school is different from learning it by yourself. School is force-feeding you everything, at a pace possibly not suited for yourself. You might even start disliking something you liked before because grading and tests sucks the joy out of things. If you, on the other hand, start to learn a language now you can get quite far in a reasonable amount of time (months). Its the difference between external and internal motivation.
This is so true - I hated with passion all that was force-fed to us, for some reason particularly stuff in high school. The only exception for whatever reason for me were foreign languages, physics and history (probably because they were easier for me to learn compared to rest).
It took years to find surprising interest (even passion) in things like biology, geography, or literature for that matter (chemistry is still a big mystery to me, although basic principles seem trivial). Grammar in any language is is still a big no-no.
It might seem ridiculous but if you pick an expensive language course, that adds some proper motivation (with added value of good teachers/materials).
Also necessity is quite a motivator and immersion helps tremendously. I'm terrible at teaching myself languages or learning them in school but can pick them up quickly when I'm living abroad where I am immersed in the foreign language and compelled to use it for daily interactions.
Also from the UK and I have the upmost respect for anyone that can speak a second language. I find it incredibly difficult to get beyond a base vocabulary to actually being able to use the language without sounding like a cave man. I assume there'll be a "click" moment somewhere but its hard work getting there.
Incidentally, if you're sticking with Indo-European languages, once you're past the base vocabulary it gets easier, as the "complicated" words are more or less all the same:
telecommunication, Telekommunikation, Télécommunications/communication électronique, telecommunicatie, telecomunicación, etc.
Funny, I'm from the US and find it difficult to understand some of the accents from both North-Eastern Americans (ayy Boston) and some of the UK folks I've met (when they write exactly how they speak).
I'm non-native English speaker and find that I can understand the severely broken pronunciation of people from China or India, but many of the English accents from England are quite impossible. I can ask them to repeat over and over again, and can't understand a thing, and feel rather silly.
I'm a native English speaker with the world's most broadcast accent (the main Hollywood movie accent) and I'm a fan of Sherlock and Doctor Who. Those programs are produced with the most well known UK accents.
And yet I still have to rewind a few times in every episode for dialogue that I just can't decypher. Sometimes I never quite get the words.
>As someone from the UK, my main reason for not moving anywhere else in Europe is the language barrier. I'm not even sure I'm capable of learning another language
I moved to Poland from the UK yonks ago, and have equally disastrous - if not worse - language skills as you.
Not long after arriving, I accidentally got a job at a startup, and I'd been led to believe everything was done in English internally: communications; client emails; heck, even variable names in the code, all was in English and I had nothing to fear.
This turned out to be a slight exaggeration; anything in English was the rare exception, rather than the rule.
You know what, though? Even without lessons and fully resenting Polish's grammar, you learn really quick. You also won't be facing this alone; as long as you're actually capable of getting the job done, plenty of local language speakers in your office will bend over backwards to encourage and help you.
Don't let language be the only thing holding you back. If I had my time again, I'd let things like bureaucracy and road safety guide my decision rather than what noises come out of peoples' mouths.
So, I still live in the U.S., but generally try to meet people abroad as often as possible while remaining in contact via Facebook, Snapchat, and WhatsApp.
While, personally, the U.K. and Sweden remain the most viable destinations if I were to move abroad, Poland isn't far behind in terms of the personalities of the people I've met, the scenery they've showed me, and the cultural/historical depth there. Obviously, take that with a truck load of salt since I've yet to visit.
> even variable names in the code, all was in English
As a English-is-my-second-language person I can't imagine naming variables using any other language but English.
English is most of the times more concise than my mother language (Polish), and it is much easier to share code on the net, find help on stackoverflow, etc.
>>English is most of the times more concise than my mother language (Polish) [...]
If one were to pick Polish variable names, would the default be the neutral forms[1]? I'm sure this applies to other languages that also have forms of complex declension compared to English. Which would make more sense in Polish?
Say you're implementing a field-specific solution, do you use the US English term or the term that's written on the users know? (specs, documentation, etc)
If another developer comes on board, will their English be fluent enough to know those terms? There's also a huge risk in having a translation error. We're programmers, not translators.
For general variable names, I agree. On the other hand, in my experience, when the programmers aren't fluent enough in English, if English is imposed, they tend to choose really bad variable names and not comment their code properly. So I tend to impose clear names/doc over imposing a specific language.
In Poland it is generally assumed that a programmer knows English, most of the companies here are just branches of companies from other countries (not only US/UK based) and to communicate we use English as a common ground.
Another factor to consider is that if we write in language that has some constructs (e.g. C - if/then/else/while/return/int/double/class/void etc.) then writing:
if (znalezione) {
...
}
looks awkward.
Also one has to consider popular libraries and functions/methods/classes in them are English based, so this would add even more awkwardness to the code:
As I said, I'm not talking about the basics, but more especially for field-specific terminology, comments, etc.
I agree with you, but the example you gave is more common than you think. We tend to over-estimate people's language skills. (keep in mind, English is not my native tongue, I'm including myself in there and it's not meant as an attack, just something we need to deal with, and I would not outright exclude bilingual code)
One problem for a startup (as opposed to a consulting firm), is that you would eventually want to have geographically distributed offices and teams, though. So if you start with a code-base in something other than english and then end up opening an office in Ireland, Germany, Singapore or India you will likely end up rewriting into english anyways (never mind the Bay Area, Seattle or NYC, which you will likely need before your company reaches 10,000 developers...).
Some advocates of code "expressiveness" would like (or perhaps dread) a word with your lead... ;)
Joke aside, for anyone curious: we use such i, j variables for abstract logic like a counter (e.g. i=0 at the beginning of a loop, and gets incremented by 1 each time the loop runs), or booleans maybe (e.g. P=0 or 1, true or false). But generally it is considered good practice to give names to variables that are self-explanatory (e.g. studentName or vehicle_age) for readability and ease of understanding. Even counters and booleans should be significant when possible (e.g. "hasResponded" or "day_num").
On topic, I think english or not doesn't matter theoretically. Its cultural and indeed 80% of computing/code happens in english on earth (no source, waddayathink!). What matters imho is that semantics are correct (both human and machine language...) and reasonably meaningful to a collaborator.
To anybody wanting to know better: read open-source code. Best school there is, actual practice.
I can't imagine naming variables using any other language but English.
I spent some time as a consultant auditing other companies' software. Even with platforms where the coding-standards dictated the use of English, most of the projects I audited in Europe used the local language, rather than English - especially in variable names.
Admittedly there was a selection bias - I wasn't ever hired to audit perfectly good software - but it was remarkably common.
Duo Lingo found that "sounding like a fool" is a big inhibitor to learning a language. With his wife, I bet your colleague didn't feel that embarrassment and could thus plow through and pick it it up.
Yeah, to learn a language you have to use it. School is a good start, but that's not usually how anyone progresses to the higher levels. Basically, you have to move to the country first and learn the language afterwards.
But yeah, English being the modern lingua franca is a major benefit to SV, London, etc.
I did it in Japan. Picked up the language with decent enough fluency to handle my job and everyday conversation within 6 months of getting a girlfriend who didn't speak English. The trick to fast language acquisition is to put yourself in a situation where you need it to survive day-to-day.
To echo the sentiment of other replies here - I learned Mandarin (an incredibly difficult and tonal language) because I literally would have starved without it, and I became fluent in German in 6 months because of a woman. And I too spent years in high school learning Spanish and still lack the ability to construct basic sentences. It's all about the situation you're learning the language in.
Language lessons in school could be the least effective way to learn a a language. If you are own the ground using it, it is amazing how fast you can learn.
Language lessons are good at giving you the grammatical foundation you need to become literate. I agree that they're pretty bad for fluency in spoken language. To be fair, though, language classes are usually 3-5 hours per week, and you won't become fluent if you move to France or somewhere and only spend 3-5 hours per week trying to speak the language.
I took three years of German in high school and a semester in college. I could never get the der/die/das stuff to stick. Later on I started reading German fiction for fun and then I got frustrated because I know the verb but not who did what to whom and then I got a lot better in the grammatical agreement area quickly.
I have gone through many years of on and off anime fandom without formal schooling. When I do pick up a book about the Japanese language, I often think "that is obvious" or alternately realized I'd heard the phrase many times without understanding it.
European countries have signs in local language plus English. And then there is France, where even in Paris or even international places like Disneyland Paris you find hardly signs in anything but French. General joe also doesn't or doesn't want to speak English with you, you better speak a little bit French if you visit Paris.
Regarding language: you'll surprise yourself. You will have passable French within 6 months or less, and excellent French within 2 years or less, but during the initial 6 months your life will be hell. Your pronunciation will never be as good as that of the natives, though, but if your grammar is all right, no one but complete assholes will mind.
Your pronunciation can most certainly become native. The easiest path there is to immediately abandon all attempts to speak the language as if it is your own, and focus on the rhythm and intonation of the language. Also, pay attention to the shape of your mouth when speaking. I almost feel as if I have an entirely different voice when I speak French than I do in English. Focus on the sound and rhythm of the language as much as you focus on the vocabulary and grammar.
When I was first learning French 22 years ago, my teacher, an older woman who'd grown up and studied in France, shared a funny little joke about French women: their wrinkles start from the lips and spread outward across their face. This was said because they keep their lips far tighter, nearly pursed, than one does when speaking English. I've noticed and paid attention to how the French use their mouths when speaking ever since. It's been immensely helpful.
You are absolutely correct -- French speakers DO use their mouths differently than English speakers. Once I learned this in my Linguistics courses, my accent improved immeasurably.
The mouth is much more pursed, there are more sibilants, sounds either come from the very back of the throat or the very tip of the tongue.
From my experience (as a french guys more interested in tech than literature) I really 'learned' spoken english by dating an UK girl (also joined a polyglot club: http://polyglotclub.com/, but living it was a real step forward, nothing compared to years of learning at school). That's the ultimate card up your sleeve to learn a foreign language.
I moved to France in 2007 and didn't speak the language, to do a math degree. It was fine. The first two years were rough, but after that I had no problems, and by the time I left in 2013 people regularly thought I was a native speaker.
The math/tech background helped a lot in the beginning. The texts there are more structured than normal, so you can get functional quickly without being conversational.
Moving there is the best thing that happened to me. Don't let the language discourage you from going anywhere. You'll struggle, and overcome.
They're referring to the UK/Brexit. There's a lot of opinions and some decently complex economics involved, but for a short summary, Brexit created economic uncertainty which acts as a general damper on business investment/growth, and if/when it's actually completed it will complicate foreign investment from elsewhere in Europe.
When people have asked specific questions like "am I going to be able to continue to live here?" or "am I going to continue to receive scientific funding that is distributed by the EU?" or "how is this going to affect my business?", they haven't recieved answers.
In the words of Douglas Adams, "This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
> When people have asked specific questions like "am I going to be able to continue to live here?" ... they haven't recieved answers.
the UK Government is has stated it will guarantee the right for EU citizens to remain, if the same right is given to Britons in rEU, however the European Union refuses to engage on the issue ("no negotiation without notification")
Then maybe they should not exit the union? The brits have to come with all the answer, and can expect no help being given since they are the ones breaking up the relationship.
I cannot quite understand the thinking behind this comment (even if I'm in a country staying in the union).
It appears that some people in the union want to retaliate to the British for wanting to leave the union and thus insulting the honour of Juncker et al. They are even ready to shoot their own foot in retaliation, instead of just accepting that Britain leaves and life goes on, and new agreements are made, and trade goes on based on new agreements, for mutual benefit.
Most assuredly the relationship of Britain and EU will have to be formed based on proposals and answers from both sides. It would be really, really strange if EU could make general schemes of preferential trade with Cuba and South Sudan but not Britain, out of sheer malice.
Yes, as others have pointed out, I was referring to Brexit, which has created a lot of uncertainty for those wanting to start or grow a business (and others, too).
At CES's startup area Eureka Park, I was stunned by the French turnout -- with, of course, the usual wide variation in seeming quality or likelihood of finding a market you might expect, still it wasn't another row of VR headsets for my phone.
I feel the general consensus is that France is good at startup creation, but lacks the infrastructure, particularly capital, to support their growth. Many of the promising ones end up getting bought by an established player, often a semi-public company stemming from an administration, like Orange (former national telecom). In other words, good entrepreneurship, but no chance of disrupting anything.
People mention the lack of VC, infrastructure, tax or other issues, but to me the biggest problem is the lack of talent. I would say that in terms of business skills, there's a surplus of "salesmen" type of founders, but technical founders are missing. France engineers are very smart and engineering school are among the best, but unfortunately I find their curriculum still oriented towards hard engineering (civil, aerospace, nuclear, etc.). On the other hand you can go to a classic university instead of the engineering school and get a computer science degree, but then you don't get as much of the engineer mindset training. Instead you get something leaning towards the pure science training, and due to the lower prestige of the universities, the computer science teaching is lagging behind a US computer science school.
Either the universities could invest more in a better computer science degree, but finding good fundings is probably difficult for public universities whose budget is decided by the government. Or the engineering schools could join the 21st century.
French billionaire Xavier niel recognizes the problem and tries to address it with his "42" school[1], I wonder how much impactful this has been
The French engineering talent is top notch... but you'll never see it.
Go to a graduation ceremony at a top school (note: it's delayed 1-2 years after graduation) and you'll learn that the top 10% have ALL left the country, no exception.
(I'm talking about the top in terms of technical abilities, entrepreneurship and/or skills that are valuable to execute , not necessarily school grades).
I can not find a quote because the numbers are hidden.
But i am in an engineering school, i am in the top 10%, and it is true.
There was even a note from the ministry this year asking engineering school to stop the mandatory semester in a foreign university for all engineering student, to try to reduce the drain.
The truth is it is a lot more complicated than you make it sound.
There are some schools which are relatively young and focus on coding. Historically they were expensive (for French schools), even though one of them is now free thanks to the generosity of a French billionaire. They recruit students with different profiles than the traditional "Grandes Écoles" and they get much less recognition from French employers, especially large companies. Because of that, their top students may indeed be inclined to move abroad, where degrees matter less.
In the more generalist, traditional engineering Grandes Écoles, however, the phenomenon is a lot less prevalent. Some students do move abroad, but my experience is that it is not correlated to their competence. Those with propensity to found companies are more likely to go to the US, but that is mostly because the ecosystem there is like no other. On the other hand, you may have noticed that some large US companies (Google, Facebook...) have been opening research labs in Paris, while top French companies such as Criteo send their marketing department to the US but keep development in France. This is not only because talent is cheaper (others have already explained how low salaries for not mean low costs) but also because top technical talent doesn't necessarily want to emigrate. This is cliché, but Fabrice Bellard is still living in France, and Yann Le Cun moved back. :)
Which number is hidden ? Certainly not proportion of people working outside France (e.g. it took me 2 mins to find the one from my own former school, ~25 %).
I am dubious because as mentioned by hiq above, you would need to wait much more than 2 years to figure out who are the "best". Another reason I am dubious is that working in France or at least in a French company is still the best way to climb the hierarchy fast when you're coming from X/Central Paris/ Mines de Paris/Telecom/etc... except for a few specific fields (finance comes to mind).
> working in France or at least in a French company is still the best way to climb the hierarchy fast when you're coming from X/Central Paris/ Mines de Paris/Telecom/etc...
For those in those French "Ivy league" it makes sense to stay in a non-meritocracy / credentials based company then, but for all other engineering schools, it's a better deal to get a 6 figures salary job in the US, where it's much closer to a meritocracy than in traditional French companies.
In US tech you certainly see some Harvard, Stanford, mit graduates, but also a lot of non ivy league colleges with jobs such as software engineer, program manager, management, etc. One extreme example is Satya Nadella who got his MS from University of Wisconsin. Even if is undergrad degree was prestigious is India, it doesn't have the ivy League "power" similar to a X/Centrale/Mines in France or Harvard in the US in traditional jobs.
Agree, it makes sense for the ones who are from these schools AND have family/friend leverage to get right into a position of power they shouldn't get, out of school or soon. They guys definitely stay in France.
However, if you're from these schools but have nothing except your hard work to sell, you're better off in UK/USA (and your alumni network definitely extends there)... but you're likely a Parisian with friends/family/housing in Paris, so there are strong incentives to stay in the place you already are. Your school name alone will afford you a career decent enough for little effort.
For someone from any other school who ain't Parisian, there is no incentive to emigrate to Paris. The opportunities are much better in the UK/USA to the point of insanity, and it may even be easier logistically (it was for me).
For an European. Why the hell would he go to Paris? It's not even worth if for French people who ain't already in Paris.
Given the size of most engineering programs in France and the way students are admitted into these programs, talking about some 10% top doesn't make sense, especially with the criteria that you mention and that cannot be assessed just 2 years after graduation.
Many of these students do start their careers elsewhere, partly due to the way the curriculum is planned (which leads many of them to finish their studies abroad). If you do look for them for your company/startup you'll be able to see them, although you could have to dig a bit deeper due to the small size of these programs (advertising in one specific French university does not have the same impact as in the UK/US and most other countries in the world).
I find it believable and surprising at the same time. Believable because despite what everyone claim, lot of people put money on top of everything else and they will head to where they are welcome to make more money.
Surprising because if a first world nation with high quality life in so many ways faces this problem what about the rest of the world.
Interesting. I live there and frequently joke about the 'frenchtech' with colleagues.
Sadly, in our experience, french companies are very slow to adopt new technologies.
There are of course some exceptions, but right now I plan to try to move to the USA.
Great move. This is how US started a golden age. Encouraging outlooking and talented migrants with ZERO public money spent on getting them to that level. Free talent. And btw, outlooking and talented migrants are exactly the kind that will want to blend in and cause no problems.
Isn't it like super hard to setup a startup in France? That being said, the talent coming out of all the grandes ecoles seems definitely underutilized.
As an interim CTO who helped a number of clients find good hires, I can say I'm definitely under the impression that a large part of grandes ecoles talents is siphoned every year by FB, Google, MS and the likes (which makes it harder for new startups to hire).
There's very little risk in joining a startup in France. You'll get almost exactly the same benefits as someone working at a big co. Work hours, vacation, retirement, healthcare, unemployment: everything is regulated by labor laws.
But when a new grad from a top school can get 40k at a startup, no bonus no equity, or 70-80k total comp at Google, it's a no-brainer.
I work at a startup and my cash comp is inline with cash at Google et all. The expected value of equity (read: last valuation prices) is also in line but obviously illiquid.
I got ripped off at the first two startups I worked for but learned my lessons.
Don't be busy, create obvious value along the actual company line.
You're most likely not working for the founders, it's really the stakeholders and at least some of these have money. Make sure the money is found for your salary (believe me they find the money for the lawyers).
Be prepared to move if necessary.
It's an uneasy compromise at first, but eventually it becomes clear the best interest is not having the best employees constantly flirting with a healthy stream of recruiters.
> Isn't it like super hard to setup a startup in France?
It's been getting way easier each year. This book[1] by Criteo's founder explores the question in details.
> the talent coming out of all the grandes ecoles seems definitely underutilized
I'm really not sure what you're hinting at here, though. Some of the concerned people will choose more relaxed jobs over intensive ones, but that's a personal lifestyle choice, and not really frowned upon.
I think the problem is going to more in closing the startup. I don't know much about labor laws but it seems to me that it's easier to hire/fire people in the US. Startups by definition are very risky and therefore, it's likely you might scale people quickly and reduce if there is no market.
Interestingly, I used to believe that until I discussed with a French founder, who confirmed that yes, there is a lot of bullshit paperwork. On the other hand, you can benefit from your (public) unemployement insurance as a founder. In other word, you can willingly quit a previous job and keep on benefiting from a substantial chunk of money for a few months/year. Along with health benefits and all the other "free" stuff you get.
Good to see things like this. Even though I would not participate in this particular scheme because I cannot speak French and have no interest in living in France it's still great to see this sort of thing happening if only for freedom of movement for hard working talented people.
There's a healthy number of startups in Paris where English is the working language. It's true that day to day life may be more challenging without speaking any French, but probably less so in Paris than elsewhere
I disagree. I've heard this from people here, however after living here for some time, I believe the reality is that if you don't speak fluent French, you will be at a severe disadvantage.
I guess it really depends on the company culture, and one shouldn't over-generalize. I have non-French colleagues who don't speak French (and made barely any progress from their French lessons, but hey it's clearly not their priority ;) and are just fine. But where I work everyone naturally switch to English as soon as there's a non-French speaker in the room.
So my advice to new comers would be to pay attention to this when you visit for interviews. Do you feel reluctance, are people hesitant and searching for words when speaking English? Could be a sign they're not used to it. If they speak casually OTOH (even with strong accent and the odd mistakes) it's likely they're used to it: good.
Great move by the French government. There are many things that could be improved vis à vis entrepreneurship in France, but at least we're giving it a real shot. Good going!
Germany offers a special visa for people who want to be self-employed. [0]
Additionally, if you have a Bachelor/Master degree in STEM, you can easily get a Blue Card if you receive a contract paying over 50,800 EUR/year. [1] Lower salaries would still enable you to obtain a regular work visa (which is specific to the job title and company).
I've heard Germany is a difficult country to establish a company (GmbH). I can't speak as an entrepreneur, but as an employee it isn't difficult at all to get a work visa from the government. I'd say the only difficulty is that you need to have every document prepared, with a spare copy, and make sure you've provided all the necessary information. German bureaucrats are especially irritable when things are missing/incomplete.
Germany is desperate for skilled workers. You don't even need to speak German to get a job in a big city like Berlin or Frankfurt.
As someone from North America, I'd highly recommend you consider Germany if you'd like to work for a start-up. Berlin is the start-up capital of Europe, and there are so many companies looking for talent you can quickly climb the corporate ladder/salary by moving companies every 12-18 months. You won't be paid as much as in Silicon Valley, but rents are sane and I'd say the quality of life is higher than in the US.
I moved to Berlin almost three years ago, and extended/expanded my company here. I am not a start-up, though I am developing a product, but more of a one-man consulting shop.
Getting a self-employed VISA is not easy unless you have some serious credentials. My partner has three degrees, two post-graduate, from highly regarded US universities; an extensive profile of speaking engagements; a very, very solid financial standing; and a solid business plan. The IHK (who reviews all business plans for self-employed applications) still said "No" but begrudgingly gave the green-light when presented with a book contract from a well known technical publisher.
I have no degrees, but a financially viable consulting business of some years, and a lengthy professional background. Three years later, over 12 foreigners office appointments, a UG (affectionately known as the mini-GmbH) with over 12K founding capital, a high-priced lawyer, over a 120K in USDEUR transfers, and a visit from the police to confiscate my passport over Christmas, my self-employment visa is no further along than the day I first submitted it.
Still, incomparably better than US immigrations. I'm certainly stuck in some weird, exceptional state that has confused even my lawyer.
Consider Berlin. It is wonderful here, definitely. Rents are rising, however, and (sadly, in my opinion) you do not need to learn German. I know of far too many people who have spent numerous years here without speaking more than a phrase or two of deutsche.
If you want to start a company/be self-employed DO NOT follow the (typische amerikanische) DIY process. Factor in costs for tax advisers and lawyers.
If you recently graduated or are still in school: Irish working holiday
I'm sure there are others, but those are what come to mind if you're an American who wants to live/work and Europe and you don't have a sponsor and aren't funded (if you have capital, you have far more options, of course).
Also, note that if you _do_ get a Blue Card it lets you work in most of the EU
"..The Blue Card is an approved EU-wide work permit (Council Directive 2009/50/EC)[1] allowing high-skilled non-EU citizens to work and live in any country within the European Union, excluding Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom.."
Though that is subject to change depending on the political climate.
Chile and Ecuador would be the countries with the best platform for that kind of thing. Check startupchile.org and Ecuador's city of knowledge website http://www.yachay.gob.ec
Uruguay for some reason is home to one of the more active development communities. But as far as visas I think you need one of those retirement visas or something.
Panama might be the easiest to get into, register companies etc. althought that technically is Central America. All in all, even in places like Venezuela with its crazy economy but that happens to be extremely favorable for service export, you will find good opportunities for startups due to extreme low cost of living, good university networks and general lack of competition and innovation. Internet speed leave a lot to be desired but it is workable. Electricity prices in some of this countries is way cheaper so that lends itself well to datacenters. Of course, those savings will need to cover stuff like private security, which is kind of a necessity.
Don't a lot of people in France look at you badly if you only speak English? I read that this is especially true in more "proud French areas" like Paris etc.
Yes and no. It was still there in the late 90's and early aughts. That said Parisians just don't like anyone not from Paris. They look down on other French people not from Paris. When you're from Paris, then you'll be judged on your arrondissement. Basically, Paris is a really judgy place but the rest of the country isn't. This isn't all that different from other countries' major cities (NYC, London, etc).
That said, you'll get by, meet a lot of nice people from all over, get to vacation regularly in places which are "once in a lifetime travels" for most Americans, etc.
Clearly not in start up environments. What do bother some shopkeepers or restaurants owners for example, is when tourists speak english to them very fast and naturally assuming everybody speaks english. But then if you ask first politely "i'm sorry i don't speak french", then you'll only receive warm welcomes.
No mention on the website that I can see, but my guess be they won't explicitly require French language exams for the visa, but not speaking French in France is going to be difficult, particularly in the North (including Paris).
It may well be that the right firm, in the right part of France (the South is normally a little friendlier), you're going to be fine. In Paris though? It seems like it is almost a national sport to be a little rude to non-native speakers, and a lot more rude to people who just try and get by in English.
But if you're planning to move to France, to start a French start-up business, and employ French employees, it is probably a good idea to learn some French.
As an English speaker, the michelthomas.com courses point out that you already know a lot more French than you think. :-)
I was looking into this for Canada and English or French proficiency is necessary. It would be odd to take a proficiency test for English but that is the rule.
I was looking into this for Canada and English or French proficiency is necessary. It would be odd to take a proficiency test for English but that is the rule.
Don't go there. The limit of freedom of speech is real and can block you. Even when you run a startup that has nothing to do with local politics or anything controversial. Plus, we are still in "state of emergency", that gives the state more rights than the patriot act. Go to the US, Canada or New Zealand.
Freedom of speech issues in France ?? I'd say a good reason not to come here is bureaucracy and taxes, but not issues with freedom of speech... Do you have some facts you'd like to share ?
Some opinions are not only socially incorrect, they can get you to jail.
Examples of forbidden topics: homosexuals, non-white people, jews, saying that you don't need health insurance…
Of course not endorsing anything about those topics, just saying that forbiding any debate on those topics may not be a long-term solution to solve those societal questions. We get the popular far-right party FN for some reason I think.
You either have no idea what you're talking about or you're lying on purpose. Or both. Nobody has been jailed for "saying they don't need health insurance".
Our freedom of speech, like in the rest of europe, is slightly more restrictive than in the US (as in: there is a concept of restricted hate speech) but the fact that the FN even exists should go a long way to showcase that you don't get jailed for stuff like that.
And in the future, if you're going to bring extraordinary claims to HN, bring a damn source.
Edit to your edit: I don't think you yourself have read those sources you linked.
I have updated my original post to provide some sources. It gets slightly off topic and noticeably too political for HN, so maybe we should stop debating about this here.
I don't think this is off-topic. But you are completely off the mark.
Health insurance: What you linked is an amendment that adds sanctions to illegally refusing social security coverage. Whether you think that's OK or not is irrelevant - it's not a speech issue.
"saying you should not do abortion": You are grossly misrepresenting what that is. Abortion is considered an integral right for french women. What your link says is that it's illegal to try to prevent them.
> Cet article punit d'un emprisonnement de deux ans et/ou d'une amende de 30 000 francs le fait d'empêcher ou de tenter d'empêcher une interruption volontaire de grossesse ou les actes préalables : soit en pertubant l'accès aux établissements d'hospitalisation publics ou privés satisfaisant aux dispositions de l'article L. 176 du code de la santé publique ; soit en exerçant des menaces ou tout acte d'intimidation à l'encontre des personnels médicaux et non médicaux travaillant dans ces établissements ou des femmes venues y subir une interruption volontaire de grossesse.
To translate: Preventing, or attempting to prevent a voluntary abortion is punished by two years in prison and/or a 30000 francs fine. "Either by preventing access to hospitals or threatening/intimidating working personnel or patients."
About state health insurance, this link should be clearer, despite not being an official source. People with more Google-fu than me can post other links if they wish.
"Depuis le 1er janvier 2007, des sanctions contre toute personne qui, par quelque moyen que ce soit, inciterait les assurés sociaux à ne plus s’affilier à un organisme de Sécurité sociale ou à ne plus payer leurs cotisations sont applicables. Elles prévoient, entre autre, une peine de six mois de prison et/ou une amende allant de 7 500 euros à 15 000 euros."
Translation: incitating people to have no health insurance at all can get you to jail (up to 6 months).
"Si l’amendement du gouvernement est voté, le délit d’entrave concernera désormais les sites qui véhiculent «des allégations ou une présentation faussée, pour induire en erreur dans un but dissuasif sur la nature et les conséquences d’une IVG»".
If it is not limitation of freedom of speech, I think it is very close.
"Si le texte est voté, ces faits seront punis des mêmes peines que l’entrave physique à l’avortement ou à l’information sur l’avortement, soit deux ans de prison et 30 000 euros d’amende."
So presenting biased information about abortion (at least in the "wrong" direction) can get you to jail (up to 2 years). If my sources are correct, this proves my points.
PS: sorry for French quotes. Too lazy to fully translate them.
> [inciting] people to have no health insurance at all can get you to jail (up to 6 months).
As your previous source said, not having health insurance is illegal in France. We're a far cry from your original "saying that you don't need health insurance". You can say that as much as you want. You just can't push other people to put themselves in an illegal situation.
> If it is not limitation of freedom of speech, I think it is very close.
[Translated context: It would become illegal to falsify facts about the consequences of abortion]
I want to be very clear: The american concept of "Freedom of speech" does not exist in most of Europe. In most of the world outside of the US in fact. It's even a stretch to say it exists in the US.
When people think "limitations on freedom of speech" they immediately think China and Iran. But in the US, I can't threaten the president (or people in general, but nobody's gonna jail me for that). I can't yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater. I could give you a lot of american examples which are far more grey area than what you've given me in these sources. The US has these limitations, generally for public safety.
In the context of a US-centric forum, claiming that "you can get jailed for speaking against abortions" is abhorrent because the US is still at the stage where abortions are not considered a fundamental right, and there is an ongoing debate about it. Therefore, you think "well, then, half the US would go to jail".
In the context of a country that does have a framework around abortion, that does make it a fundamental right and where it's essentially a non-issue... then it's a lot easier to see why it's illegal to publish false information about it.
This is a country where gays and muslims are treated with respect, where women's rights are respected and where public health is highly valued. In that context, these restrictions are, like american ones, a matter of public safety.
First, thank you for changing the overall tone of your comment.
You assume that the state is always right. I agree it is right in most cases, but not always. And calling arguments like "public safety", like "fighting terrorism", is a way for a government to have more power than it ought to (at least from the point of view of its libertarian citizen).
Voting a law should not necessarily close the debate around it. Societal truths may change: "false information" may just be opposite opinions. Saying it is false is not enough to discard it. A non-issue for you (e.g. abortion) may be an issue for the guy or girl next door.
Activists should not be banned from having strange opinions as it is the root of democratic debates. Let them be ashamed in society, but do not jail them. Today's fundamental rights may be revoked tomorrow because society may someday realize that it was, in the end, not such a good idea.
This is basically a political tradeoff between public safety and free speech/freedom in general. I personnally and currently support more free speech. You look like rather supporting public safety. I'd be happy to read your opinion on that topic.
I said this in another thread, but I want to make it clear here as well:
> I generally agree that "inciting" is a loosely defined term and I, too, dislike how easy of a tool it can be for political censorship.
I don't particularly like the idea of restrictions on free speech. But I also don't particularly like when people's health and livelihoods, public safety, the earth's climate are all damaged by sleazy tactics from people who want to make a quick buck.
I don't like that said restrictions are a tool that can be abused by those in power ... but isn't that just about everything? Surveillance? Police forces?
We make tradeoffs because our world is not made of absolutes. The US makes those tradeoffs as well, the line is just elsewhere. Being a "terrorism sympathizer" in the US will potentially earn you a free trip to Cuba. And that is also a tool that has been used for political censorship.
When I look at the end result, though, we have a country where abortion is a right and saying "god hates fags" is not. The US is the other way around. I know which outcome I prefer.
You're linking a source that you don't understand. "Toute personne qui refuse délibérément de s’affilier ou qui demande à ne plus être affiliée à un régime de sécurité sociale"
This has nothing to do with freedom of speech.
And since when is it illegal to talk about homosexuals, non-white people or jews ?
I don't know Zemmour other than by name. So I went on his Wikipedia page to take a look at that. The french one appears to have more information.
- Condamnation pour incitation à la discrimination raciale en 2011
- Condamnation pour provocation à la haine envers les musulmans
- Condamnation d'I-Télé pour "rupture abusive de contrat"
One is about racial discrimination. One is about inciting hate against muslims. The last one is about a private company. The guy also happens to have written a book about gays where... I'll just quote wikipedia: ""gays" would have been stigmatized and isolated, like the lepers of old."
Help me out here. How do you get from there to "You're only allowed to talk about gays if you say 'they're great and I love everything about them'"?
I can see how your general point about political censorship could be true (I don't know enough about this to pass judgement), but I'm asking specifically about your comment on homosexuals.
Just to recontextualize this: This is a thread about the viability of startups in France. As I mentioned a bit further up, there are "no hate speech" rules all over Europe. Germany for example is far, far stricter than France about it ... and Berlin has a vibrant startup scene.
I generally agree that "inciting" is a loosely defined term and I, too, dislike how easy of a tool it can be for political censorship. But there's worlds between those details and some of the claims I'm finding in this thread.
Hmm we may have a misunderstanding. I didn't make a comment about homosexuals, specifically. My point was rather that there are, de facto, state-enforced standards for political correctness in France and that this maps directly onto a form of censorship.
I don't think most of the issues with freedom of speech in France would be of much concern to a putative startup founder, but they are real.
For example, "expressing support for acts of terror" is an imprisonable offense, and it has been interpreted incredibly broadly by the courts, to the point that drunk people have been sent to prison for years over tasteless jokes. Similarly, simply browsing websites that are deemed in support of terrorism: a man from Chartres recently received a two-year sentence for the latter.
It's fair to say that the current climate is pretty Orwellian. But if you're not a brown person or a Muslim, you're not what prosecutors are after.
If I remember correctly, You are more or less responsible for whatever appears on your website. If your users use your service for forbidden speech, then you are liable.
In Germany, you might be responsible for things you link to under certain circumstances. But I don't think that's really a big deal for startups in Germany.
To assess this properly, it would be interesting to know what startups in different countries pay to lawyers.
France tries to regulate what people wear while sitting on the beach. It seems downright opposed to multiculturalism and diversity. Freedom of expression isn't just the right to write blog posts.
That's false. The government of France never tried to pass such a bill. It was a mayor of a small town that tried to ban burkinis but this bill was suspended by a higher court.
it's generally opposed to multiculturalism because the dominant mentality in France is integrationism, not multiculturalism, it's the opposite approach to the US/UK.
I sure do see a lot of people here who have zero actual experience of France, ready to pass judgement based on whatever clickbait they happened to read a few years back, after it's gone through a couple of translation layers.
Speaking as somebody who's lived in France, Greece, the UK, the US and Sweden: France is by far the most "multiculturalism-friendly" place of all these. Yes, even more than Sweden.
Like most French people, I'm not proud of my country. But this is something I can be proud of.
(Disclaimer: Some cities are of course less kind to strangers than others; it's not a uniform utopia)
"Man names Wi-Fi network “Daesh 21,” prosecuted under French anti-terror law. New law forbids “public praise” of terrorism, punishable by up to 7 years in prison."
Could you expand on that? I'm French, living and working near Paris and I would be interested to hear what limits do you think of.
Personaly I think it is no worse that any other Western country.
Edit: The limits I can think of are more from media watchdogs, which can be ignored (just look at Dieudonné). Or you can be sued by anti racist/anti _____phobe associations for slander, but I would not qualify that as a limit on freedom of speech like can exist in other countries.
Also, maybe people will want to wait for next elections results (in may 2017) before considering moving in :)
I don't see either what you mean with freedom of speech problems, except maybe if it's about holocaust denial or things like that which are punished by law, here. But I guess most people won't be bothered.
State of emergency is indeed a problem, not to mention that there's a high chance we'll be targeted again by terrorism.
In France, freedom of speech is limited for terrorism, hate speech, hating religions e.g. For example, encouraging racism, lauding Hitler or ISIS, or extreme versions of islam or christianism which limit women's rights etc.
The only difference with US or Canada is that religion extremism is more "tolerated" in those countries, but that is NOT an issue for startups. Unless you're doing a religion startup??!?
The real issue for startups going to France is not freedom of speech. It's red tape, lack of practicality, a bit more corruption (compared to Canada or New Zealand), and the lack of openness from the general population towards capitalism and innovation.
There is a vast amount of what would be considered incendiary or illegal discussion in France, that occurs on Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and dozens of other US platforms.
Those types of services, Google included, are gateways & amplifiers that enable a much larger ecosystem for tech start-ups. Censorship drives or keeps them away, which is one of the reasons why the US will perpetually dominate such in the West.
The latest anti free speech movement taking over Europe, is the "fake news" authoritarianism. Having bureaucrats decide what is legally to be considered news; aka an excuse for increasing government censorship. Major European nations are moving aggressively to strictly limit such. Should Breitbart be covered by freedom of speech? I think it's obvious that they should. In Germany or France it would not be, they'd immediately seek to destroy them.
Facebook is a $369 billion tech behemoth that could never exist anywhere but the US. It's probably worth more than every public technology company in all of the EU combined.
>In France, freedom of speech is limited for terrorism, hate speech, hating religions e.g. For example, encouraging racism, lauding Hitler or ISIS, or extreme versions of islam or christianism which limit women's rights etc.
> The limit of freedom of speech is real and can block you. Even when you run a startup that has nothing to do with local politics or anything controversial.
Give a specific example or avoid baseless accusation.
Don't go there. The limit of freedom of speech is real and can block you. Even when you run a startup that has nothing to do with local politics or anything controversial. Plus, we are still in "state of emergency", that gives the state more rights than the patriot act. Go to the US, Canada or New Zealand.
"This specific visa can be used for talent coming from anywhere in the world. As an example, we are aware of a recent senior hire from the US that got his visa returned to him in his passport exactly 28 days from submission. This specific visa puts an individual on track to Indefinite Leave to Remain and Citizenship with no need to stick with a particular employer."
The system here is that you can get tons of subventions and tax credits for being in IT.
So yes, corporate tax and personal income tax applies, aswell as other stuff. You just have to figure out how much of this tax will be cancelled or refunded (usually this is the kind of infos that get shared in french startup networks).
For the startups: Don't think so. Corporations need to generate profits to pay taxes. ;)
The personal income taxes apply though.
The other huge problem with France (and Europe in general) is the problem that you can't fire bad/unneeded employees easily.
Continental Europe is a bad environment for young companies that need to be agile. Too much red tape and regulation. And when you survive all that, the state is going to take most of your profits as taxes and compulsory social contributions (and compulsory non-social contributions cough German IHK cough).
EU countries can come up with as many visa and incubator schemes as they like. But they won't attract many entrepreneurs. Because if I'm an entrepreneur in the position to start a business in another country then I'm going to choose the best one: The USA.
> For the startups: Don't think so. Corporations need to generate profits to pay taxes. ;)
You are contradicting your own point. A startup with zero profit can still be taxed at a very high rate and pay almost zero taxes simply because there is no profit to be taxed. But the rule would still apply in this case.
On your 30k, you get 1925€ per month (23k/yr) after corporate tax/social security etc. We call this "net" even though income tax is due on top of that.
For income tax, you pay taxes according to the following brackets (on yearly income) :
- 0€ to 9700€ : 0%
- 9701€ to 26791€ : 14%
- 26791€ to 71826€ : 30%
That means for a single person with no children, you pay an incone tax of 234€/yr, or 20€/month.
I think it's covered:
The “skills and talents”, “EU Blue Card,” “employee on assignment” and “scientist-researcher” temporary residence permits provide full rights to a “private and family life” permit for family members accompanying a non-EU national.
(from http://ec.europa.eu/immigration/what-do-i-need-before-leavin...)
> Are you trying to imply that Syrians and Tunisians have NO positive economic impact?
Why is this comment dead? It was more or less my point, which that a lot of unqualified migrants, mostly from Africa and Asia, has no positive economic impact, since we have NOTHING to offer to them (no job, no future). So I am opposed to more unqualified migrants coming for economic reasons. Syrian refugees, on the other hand, I think we should help them.
Paris is great, grew up there. You just have to be comfortable with the fact that more than half of your money get taken by the government for taxes and social security.
I think it's more like 40%. But at least we have free schools, free universities (ok, sometimes 500EUR/year) and a decent public health service.
I also grew up and lived in France for 20+ years and have lived in UK for 5+ years. It's true that I earn more in UK than in France but for example to compare public health systems, although both are free, NHS is really the worse and it does not seem it's going to get any better in the future.
So what you are saying is that it is a great place if you are content with the government deciding how to spend a very large portion of your hard earned income?
Is there even an incentive to work? What are the unemployment benefits?
That portrayal of the French system is a little bit biased. You could just as well say:
So what you are saying is that it is a great place if you are content with the government saving your life when you are ill without expecting hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills that will ruin the rest of your life? Without considering whether you are able to pay, as if you were a human being that deserves help and humanity? And helping you if you lose your job??!?!
As you see, neither of them helps the discussion a lot, as they are aggressive and the typical reaction would be to take a defensive position.
> Is there even an incentive to work?
Most of the people there work. A little bit later, as they take more vacation. And they survive. And on average wouldn't trade it for an American lifestyle.
It is a matter of life choices. And the point is that these programs enhance mobility so more people can choose, which is better.
What have those non-free, taxation based, universities produced?
25 years of economic stagnation, low innovation, increasing marginalization of France as a consequential economy in the global order (they've been sinking down the list for 40 years), perpetual high unemployment, and a GDP per capita that has failed to keep up to such a dramatic degree that it needs to climb 70% to catch the US.
With results like those, the tax payers are clearly not getting a good return on their non-free education system.
Other than GDP (which frankly benefits 5% of US population), everything is better in France. Better roads, better public transportation, high speed rails, healthcare, education. Even small and remote villages in France have high quality roads, rail connections etc. and doesn't look run down and entrenched in poverty.
GDP only benefits 5% of the population? Oh really. That doesn't sound right at all given the fact that the US median disposable income is far higher than France.
Not to mention the median wage growth is four to five times faster in the US than in France. So much for your theory.
Demographically France is about 80% white. The US median white household has an income of $73,000 as of 2016 ($108,000 with a college education) and a median net worth of nearly $150,000. Both higher than France. I use the direct demographic comparison, because it would be absurd to compare an 8th generation French family to a first or second generation Latin American family in the US (the US is 63% white by comparison, with far more immigration on a percentage basis in the last 40 years than France has seen).
The US has a superior university education system. It's not even remotely close. That has been the case globally since WW2. The rest of the world has been trying to catch up and copy what the US accomplished with its universities, for decades. The top 50 US universities put France to shame.
The US has a far lower unemployment rate. The US is a high innovation economy, France is a low innovation economy, which you can witness across nearly every economic area in comparing the US to France. The US is superior to France in: manufacturing, agriculture, aerospace, software, Internet broadly, mobile, medtech, biotech & pharma, and energy. The US has a far more dynamic small business economy than France does, with a much more liberal entrepreneur culture. The US has less air pollution than France; NYC has dramatically cleaner air than Paris.
Per the OECD better life index, the bottom 10% in the US are far better off than the bottom 10% in France. The US poverty line is also much higher than it is in France.
Better infrastructure in France? Eurozone spending on infrastructure per dollar of GDP, is now below that of the US, and that's really saying something because the US level is far too low. How long do you suppose France can continue to maintain what it does have, with such persistently low wage growth, such persistently low GDP growth, such high taxes and high regulation?
> US median disposable income is far higher than France
Did you subtract health insurance premiums, co-pays, and deductibles? Nowadays, for a family of 3 that could run around $500 out-of-pocket per month for employee premiums alone. And that's before adding employer-paid premiums, which are usually 80-90% of the entire premium cost, which could otherwise be going straight to employee pocket.
> I use the direct demographic comparison, because it would be absurd to compare an 8th generation French family to a first or second generation Latin American family in the US
And yet you're comparing a 5th generation New England family in the US to a first generation Lebanese family in France? OK then. And yes, Lebanese would be statistically white.
> The US has a superior university education system.
And a superior college debt system. Did you subtract college debt payments from your "median disposable income" as well by the way?
> The US is superior to France in:
Capitalism. Yes, US is indeed superior to France in that. Which is exactly what GP meant by benefiting 5%.
All I will say is that you should close Wikipedia, go learn French in Southern France for 3 months and then comeback and reread what you wrote.
Just because other countries have different systems, does not mean it is not working out for them, or that we need to start doing silly number comparisons that say nothing about the culture of each country.
France is doing pretty good in the engineering department, naval, nuclear and aeronautics are top notch. I would guess that the university system is not that bad eh?
The US has a great learning system for higher education, and the expensive part is covered with the high salaries you get afterwards. Plus the best part of being in America, always be in the front row for new movies, videogames, etc (well, Japan sometimes gets the games first, but oh well)
So don't be a hater, just go out and explore stuff. Diversity is what makes us great.
Everyone who has ever done recruiting in a french IT company noticed that 80 to 90% of the resumes you receive come from North African countries (old colonies, mainly Algeria and Tunisia), that try to get a job in order to get a Visa. Most of them are unqualified, but they just "go for it".
Now, is this initiative going to lead to most of them pretending to want to start a company ? And how is the program going to filter qualified individuals to opportunists ?
There are only 70 start-up incubator visas available, so I assume competition is exceptionally fierce.
This aside, for the engineer visas, it requires getting a job offer from one of the "100+ leading French Start-Ups", which means you presumably have to pass whatever requirements those hiring managers impose on you as well.
Ok, thanks for the info. For the engineer visas, I thought that obtaining a Visa once a company has agreed to hire you was already possible. So what's the difference with this program, in the "engineer" case ?
I would say 46+ k€, before taxes, which are 33% corporate tax rate and ~30% on personal income. But I'm not sure how it applies to people with tech visa.
46k is really low in France for an experienced dev and that's outside of Paris. Junior dev engineer earn at least 45k when they begin in Paris, and it gets to 60k in about 5-10 years. Also corporate taxes are about 23% but you're right on personal income.
I've had my Engineer's Degrees from ISEP last year and I'm working at Alten since October 2016. My official title is development engineer (Ingénieur d'études).
Before that, I've done two six-months internship as a junior java dev.
Alten is a technology and engineering consulting company, which means, in the context of the French market, that when a company, need a particular profile (like java dev) to staff a position for a set amount of time (like for the expected duration of a project), they'll contract Alten for a developer, java, for x months.
Does it track market rates? I've worked for a company before that took fresh grads, and relied strongly on them never entering the market for themselves and realising what market rate was.
Yep, same as the company I worked for. Market rate is hard to discover, but harder still if you have an entity working against you - the company I worked for had a binding contract with any client preventing them from revealing how much they paid for temps.
Do you have a period of time you are contracted to work? If you can make friends in the Paris dev community, you might be able to find out how good/bad your pay is.
From what my former classmates told me, for profiles that are roughly equivalent, it looks like to be closer to 40k. But then they are not in consulting companies.
And I'm too much of a lazy ass to look for another job. Also I have few reason right now to seek a higher salary.
If one of those reasons is "I'm still learning", note that agency jobs can often be exactly the same as non-agency jobs, except with a middle-man sapping away a portion of salary.
You can expect something from 50k to 70k€ (gross salary) dependending on the company and your experience.
Remove 25% of that to have an idea of your net salary. (Those 25% are mostly for your retirement plan, social security and unemployment insurance. All of those are mandatory)
Expect to pay between 1 and 2 months net salary in yearly incomes taxes.
> Just to use round numbers, here is a breakdown for a single person making $120k/yr in California at a typical tech company.
Is that total cost to employer for that employee? Or are there additional expenses that are not considered part of employee gross income but instead fall under "employer pays for them" category?
California is consistently at the top of polls ranking by taxes paid. Sooo... it's not entirely fair to extrapolate to the USA from California, despite its size.
People making the kind of money being discussed here, such that you trigger higher bracket income taxes, have great health insurance in the US as well. Further, decent jobs in the US almost always include health insurance compensation above the salary. I have a brother that works in a pretty normal job earning $42,000 per year (not an outsized salary in the US), he pays $27 per month for his health insurance through his employer, and it's a nice plan. That isn't unusual in the US, health insurance compensation is almost universally ignored in salary comparisons (while the inverse isn't true, the tax based health coverage in other nations is always noted as a perk that should be considered with salaries).
The education system you're referring to is not free at all. The very substantial income taxes in France pay for it.
The context seems to have been lost in the shuffle. Here's what I was responding to:
>I have a brother that works in a pretty normal job earning $42,000 per year (not an outsized salary in the US), he pays $27 per month for his health insurance through his employer, and it's a nice plan. That isn't unusual in the US
My point is that most people in 'pretty normal jobs' pay considerably more for healthcare.
Show me the US median instead of the average. The average will usually be substantially tilted higher by extreme examples at the top end. I'd be willing to bet the median is closer to $60-$70. That's not expensive.
Here's the same exact same free education logic applied to the US system:
US universities are free. The money you don't pay in taxes covers the cost.
What evidence would you hold up to suggest the French fraternal economy system is the one to mimic? As opposed to Sweden, Germany, or the UK, which have all produced superior results the last few decades with different approaches from that of France.
> As opposed to Sweden, Germany, or the UK, which have all produced superior results the last few decades with different approaches from that of France.
Sweden, Germany and the UK have approached economic growth far differently than what France has, and have produced superior results to that of France. The question was, why would the "French fraternal" system be worthy of being copied given its weak results?
See for example: Sweden's economic deregulation and lowering of taxes, which prompted their significant economic boom.
You say pure bullshit, as in all your messages in this thread. Almost all European countries share the same principles about education and universities, and their funding, that's what is was about.
You obviously don't have the slightest idea of what you're talking about, but you don't care, you keep talking and talking, the only thing that matters it to end with "Murica is better than anything else".
I'm sorry but I believe most of that is FUD, which some prominents economists have been calling out, e.g. this short Krugman piece: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/06/about-that-frenc...
The sad thing is that this FUD itself has a impact, and is therefore self-fulfilling to some extent.
"Superior results" are, to be fair, quite debatable:
- UK got an edge via fiscal dumping, hurting its neighbours. This is also what Ireland is doing now, which really gives "good results", but is hurting all other EU countries (Luxembourg some the same, some other countries as well).
- Germany has a lower unemployment rate, but with way more precarious working conditions for many workers.
- I really don't know about Sweden so I won't speak about it, but I'm going to read the piece you linked, it looks interesting.
I could also say that France has superior results, if you look at other metrics:
- productivity per hour: the USA is #1 with a very very small edge over Germany and France, both #2. The UK, Japan are far behind
- Gini coefficient! This one is very dear to me. We're doing pretty well, and our evolution over 10 years has been better than most of our neighbours[1]
I believe that the biggest problem we're facing nowadays (and have been facing for a couple decades) is that increased globalisation allows companies to go "shopping" for their fiscal system, and put countries in competition. This creates a drive to get lower tax rates than your neighbours, which is a bad spiral and in the end deeply hurts countries (however, if you happen to disagree with that, then I'm afraid we have fundamentally different world view, and I don't really have the energy or will to debate if further, sorry). Ireland is a prime example of this.
> why would the "French fraternal" system be worthy of being copied given its weak results?
My goal is not for it to be copied a bit everywhere but, really, for it to be considered with fairness, and not just shunned and mocked because of propaganda and preconceptions.
I actually have a in mind couple great pieces I'd like to share on those topics; unfortunately they're in French. I'll look a bit around for potential translations.
I believe education is "free" till the end of high-school in the US the same way it is in France, the difference starts with College/University.
(France has a really nice pre-K system though!)
I think it depends on where in the US. In NYC, I pay around 32% of my gross income in federal and local taxes, social security, medicare, etc. That's almost 4 months of my salary.
On top of that, I have to pay for health insurance, deductibles, and retirement savings, which I assume my French counterpart wouldn't have to separately pay for.
Exactly. The first 25% I mentioned includes health insurance for your whole family with close to 0 deductibles (usually a few euros here and there), retirement plan and unemployment insurance (if you get fired, you can expect to get ~60% of your previous gross salary the first year, slowly decreasing after that) and at the very least 5 weeks of paid annual leave.
Christ, the top end of those numbers (both for gross salary and income taxes) is 3600 euros net per month, which is only 20-40% more than you get in Warsaw. Meanwhile, Paris real estate is (from what I'm hearing) extremely expensive.
I just graduated from Ecole Centrale Paris, usually second on engineering school rankings after Ecole Polytechnique. I found a job in web development in a small startup in November and am making ~45k a year.
But that was not the point, the point was that people talk about "raw", or "after taxes", while it does not mean the same. In France when they talk about "income after taxes" (~23% salary taxes), it is before the equivalent of US Federal+State taxes. These ~23% are about "social contribution" (mandatory healthcare, retirement, unemployment, etc.).
Only then, the income taxes are computed on what remains, depending on your family situation (having children impact a lot in France compared to the US). For a single person it can be up to ~ two-months salary.
Right, but we also pay 7.6% in social security in addition to income taxes, along with hefty healthcare premiums + deductibles which you don't have to worry about[1]. We also don't have the benefit of free higher education. Despite the depressed technical wages, overall, I think the French have a better deal from a quality of life perspective -- especially if, as you say, they have children.
I hope their system proves sustainable in the long run... I wish I had a way to participate in it (I could apply for the visa, I suppose), but it would be difficult for my US academic wife to break into French academia[2] at a suitable level.
[1] In a bad year, we're talking $13K in deductibles for a family of four on an average insurance plan.
[2] Now that I think about it, she studies French domestic politics. Hmmm...
40-45 for master's degree from a very few select schools, like the one from the OP. (Think of it as an equivalent of MIT/standford/harvard. Only a few hundreds lucky people get out of there every year).
35-40k for master's degree from everywhere else.
If you don't have a master's just forget about it ^^
You'll definitely earn way less, but you'll be entitled to a lot of vacations (5~7 weeks of paid vacations).
The Americans I know that went to work to France don't want to go back
I'm an American that just spent five years in France. My experience, for what it's worth: I can't say enough nice things about it in every aspect outside of work. I lived in the south of France and I now realize how nice life can be.
Life -- not work. Working there was a nightmare. The pay is low, and while you can live on it, you're not really saving. For a while I was part of the startup community there and while there are many great programs from the government, there is a bit of a local mafia deciding things. Investors were so unsophisticated that technology itself seemed to scare them.
All-in-all, if I could have made it work, I would have done so in a heartbeat. Living there is simply a small piece of heaven on earth. There's just no way to viably work there that I could find.
France doesn't offer "free healthcare". If you go to the doctor on an outpatient basis, you pay for the visit up front* and will be reimbursed 80% of the reasonable and customary charges. If you need to go to the hospital, then you're not paying anything. Medicine is reimbursed at a lower rate with it's own plusses and minuses: Many items that would be over the counter in the US require a prescription (e.g. lactase enzyme). So it's a hassle to get it, but you'll also get reimbursed for it if you need it.
The schools are good, but they are also going to be very hard on your kids unless they are very young. Homework volume is high, and my own cynical view is that at least part of it is training kids for the experience of dealing with the difficulties of filling out lots of paperwork and dealing with the French civil service.
Source: Worked for two years in a French overseas territory.
The indigent and extremely poor have special programs whereby they are exempted from this.
*You can buy additional insurance that will increase the coverage to 100% and/or remove the need to pre-pay. That comes with the tradeoff of having to use the provider network that the insurance company has (a la US healthcare).
An important point you seem to be missing, is that stuff that are not free but deemed a necessity (e.g.: family doctor consultation, drugs...) are capped. What they are allowed to charge at most is decided by law (in exchange, they get to control how many people gets to go to (~free) Medical School every year -- it's far from ideal, but not a terrible balance).
Yes, because part of my paycheck goes towards that. And every time I fill up. You seem to fall into the trap of "if I don't hand over money at the same time as I make use of something, it's free." Politicians love to exploit this phenomenon for maximum effect.
You seem to fall into the trap of "if I don't hand over
money at the same time as I make use of something, it's free."
The distinction is that it doesn't matter how much or little I use it, I pay no more.
If I drive on the highway, I don't pay anything extra. If I choose not to drive on the highway, I don't get cash in my pocket. Use of the service doesn't cost anything - this is "free at the point of delivery".
This is important, because it means that the service is independent of income. I don't need income to drive on the highway. I don't need income to have secure healthcare. Some services are important enough to be socialised, so that the service is open to everyone, irrespective of their income, wealth, or lack of.
> Some services are important enough to be socialised, so that the service is open to everyone, irrespective of their income, wealth, or lack of.
And they continue to operate so long as there are enough people who _actually pay for these services_. Maybe you don't fall into that category, fine. But there are a lot of people who do, and it all comes straight out their paycheck. It is not free for them by any stretch of the imagination.
Your logic is not sound though. Some people are not paying a dime while others pay more. And by far you are using way more road that you are able to afford, just like what happens with shared hosting.
More importantly, according to your definition, nothing is ever free. If I tell you that you can pick a fruit from a tree in a national park, you will probably use a ridiculous argument that national parks are protected, therefore somebody pays for the maintenance, etc.
So no offense, but please don't be an idiot, and by that I mean "someone who acts in a self-defeating or significant counterproductive way."
I always found that calling the healthcare "free" in France is a large part of 1) how much people can abuse it and 2) don't appreciate it for its real value.
I am using https://salaryaftertax.com/fr to compute the net salary, but I am not sure whether it offers the complete picture.
Could anyone familiar with the taxation in France offer more details?
This seems to be accurately calculating the income taxes, but that's not taking into account the corporate taxes.
If a French employer tells you they'll pay you 100k€ annually (just for the sake of the example), you can expect to receive 75k€. (25%, mostly for your retirement plan, social security and unemployment insurance. Mandatory)
Then, if you input those 75k in this tool, it will tell you what you can expect to pay as income taxes. In the case of 75k, 17 218€.
Another data point (throwaway for privacy reasons) -- senior data scientist, 5 years experience, in Paris, working for a large American networking company. I am making 65 kEUR gross incl. bonus, i.e. 40 kEUR after all taxes.
And I am happy to be leaving soon for job in London paying 85 kGBP gross.
I still expect to be better off there. I rent a 1BR place in Paris for 850 EUR, and I expect to find something comparable in London for 1500 GBP. That means that the flat in London costs about 800 EUR more, which is less than the salary increase I'll be making.
65 k€ = 3358 € per months (on "12 mois") after all taxes, if single living alone.
85 k£ = 4712 £ per month, after all taxes.
Also, 65 k€ is a fairly good end of career in France whereas 85 k£ is a good middle experience in London (and you can get bonus, pension and perks on top).
I live in Harrow in a nice one bedroom for £995. It's in Zone 5 which is far out, but the Metropolitan line has fast trains that go straight to Zone 2 in the morning so you can be in Liverpool Street in around 40 minutes.
That said, if you're thinking of dropping £1500 on a 1 bed you'll have no problem IMO. I was paying £1400 for a 2 bedroom with garden and huge living room in Leytonstone only a few months back. As long as you're not planning on living in Mayfair or Kensington that's a nice budget to work with.
> What are salaries like for mid-senior level software engineers working in tech companies in Paris?
Looking at what StackOverflow's Jobs tab spits out right now, I see: software engineer Java 38k-60k; software engineer Python 40k-55k; DevOps engineer (not your idea, I guess? there's a number of these) 40k-55k; developer for 3D applications 38k-48k; ...
Then there is one for a senior Java engineer for 47k-59k and right above another one for a senior Java engineer for 60k-120k.
These numbers are gross. Based on other posts, deduct 35-40% to account for things taken out of your paycheck (including health care) plus the income tax and rental tax you have to pay after. Rent for a small apartment in Paris starts about 1000 Euros per month and rises steeply.
38% + about 1 month of net income to pay each year as income tax.
There's absolutely no visibility on retirement plan. You just know that you earn "points", with no idea what they're worth.
Also, when you rent in France you have to pay a tax (similar to property tax) which, depending on the city, can be quite high (~1 month of rent/year).
VAT is 22% on most products. Gas is expensive (highways too!!!). Train (TGV) is ridiculously expensive.
> 38% + about 1 month of net income to pay each year as income tax.
My 35-40% figure includes the income tax and the rental tax. You must be in a crazy high bracket if you get 38% deducted every month. On my last pay slip, it's 17.5%, but I get paid around the lower end of the salary brackets I posted above.
> VAT is 22% on most products.
20%
> Gas is expensive (highways too!!!).
Maybe. I prefer spending my money on better things than a car.
I'm in US right now, 1 semester left for degree and have interned at a respectable company.
I wonder if they're looking for experienced engineers over fresh ones.
I've read so much that work life and culture is so much better in France, so heres hoping...
> I've read so much that work life and culture is so much better in France, so heres hoping...
Yes and no. There's certainly room for a healthy work-life balance, but don't believe that you're guaranteed to get an interesting job AND great work-life balance. You can find it, but it's not 100% of the market.
Absolutely! I feel like once you get out of your 20s, finding the right work-life balance and general quality of life becomes more important. You can also better appreciate cost of living - gross salary isn't as important as what you have left over after you pay all your bills. Once kids come into the picture, the big expenses in the US like child-care, school, and coverage for your family on your health insurance plan takes a huge chunk out of your salary anyway. It's not a tax like in many European countries, but it's not money going into your savings either.
You know, a lot of CS people in the US seem to really love the US and say stuff like "it sucks not to be in the US." They usually mention how they can afford everything since they make so much money and how they prefer to work 600 hours a week instead of having forced days off and that health care through Employer is so much better than through government.
Admittedly, this was on Reddit, which is just a huge echo chamber, which led me to stop using it.
However, I wonder how your point of view on this subject is?
I believe a lot of tech people are the type that prefer a computer as everything around them is madness in disguise.
A lot of people I know over time build mental walls that resemble what the US culture respects and pushes on everyone. Work is #1 and money is everything. I see people that never use their vacation days and feel bad when they do!
I believe if there was more focus on philosophy teachings in the US, things would be different and maybe more healthy individuals would exist. I think it's easier in the US to fall into a unhealthy pattern of life and not realize it. Some people are dumb founded by the notion or just don't think about it as they don't see alternative options available. I've had luck of working with many older engineers that advise if they had done things differently in life...
Yes. This is how I feel when reading those comments as well. I am from Europe, but living in the US at the moment, but will be moving back soon again. Obviously, people who never experienced an alternative cannot really see how what they have now might be bad.
Having been in both Europe and the US I can easily compare both lifestyles and conclude that Europe is more suited for me, even if it means that I will not own a 5 bedroom house with 6 TVs.
When I worked in tech in the US, I got three or four weeks off. This was considered an incredible degree of largess on the part of my employers. Unfortunately, though, my partner generally got only a week off per year (she works in museums, a tough industry).
In Europe we both get a month off every year by law, which means we can both enjoy it. My salary is lower, but hers is higher. In general, we find we have more fun this way.
> how they prefer to work 600 hours a week instead of having forced days off
Your idea of jobs in the US is wrong. I work 40 hrs a week and sometimes that goes up to 45 or 50 but not often. I get breakfast and lunch provided to me (also dinner but I don't stay for it because I would go insane) and I make 150k + 80k a year in equity. You could also however work at amazon and get paid the same but also work 60 hours a week (Amazon is the exception and has a very bad reputation).
> health care through Employer is so much better than through government
Health care through the employer can be significantly better than through the government. It can also be worse.
If you are a high performer in the US, it is perfect.
I think you misunderstood what I meant with that. I was trying to make the point that whenever people say the US is great, they mention that they would rather work 60 hours a week than maybe 40 and being forced to take every other Friday off or whatever. I am not saying all jobs are like this, but people who say that everything else than the US sucks use this argument.
And why do you think that getting insurance through the employer is better than government? Maybe it is only great for people who know they won't get laid off. In Europe if you get laid off you are still insured. If you are working and wish to have better insurance, you can always go with a private insurance company. I am just not fond of the idea that basic social services are tied to your employment status, since getting laid off could put you in a negative cycle.
To me (working in London), the biggest difference in France is the attitude towards healthcare : it's not a business, rather a right. I first heard the words "Preexisting condition" when I moved to London and researched private insurance there.
"the attitude towards healthcare : it's not a business, rather a right"
"I first heard the words "Preexisting condition" when I moved to London and researched private insurance there."
Might that be a reflection that it's private healthcare in a country which already provides free healthcare?
The human right to healthcare is already catered for in the UK, through the NHS, so private healthcare doesn't have to accommodate the right, it's simply a business.
You have the official national healthcare that you're forced to pay "la securite sociale" and a wide range of private healthcare that you're forced to pay as well "une mutuelle".
Noawadays, it's even picked and forced by your employer (but taken on your pay). You may not be able choose or deny the plan you're offered. It's messy.
It's not a benefit when you're forced to take it AND your wife is forced to take one as well (that both cover both of you). So you end up paying double. Then not only it's taken away from your pay directly by the company but it's also a taxable benefit so you pay taxes on top. Just saying.
Not France, but if you're looking for work-life balance and about to graduate, maybe check out the working holiday visa in Ireland. You can show up with the right to work, instead of having to convince someone to hire you while living abroad.
If interested, I would suggest doing your research quickly since the program has been watered down on the US side and I would expect some tit for tat as time goes on.
If you take a look at the french economy, their political system, their tax rates and social security system you don't actually want to work and/or live there as a startup founder, so no need for a visa. Nice try, France.
// edit: ah, not to forget about their unwillingness to treat you as human being when not speaking their language.
It's not crazy when you put it in context of the history of France with war and espionage I think. What are regulations on cryptography and decryption like in other European countries like Italy, Belgium, etc?
The article is misleading. This legislation [1] only apply to terrorism acts. And basically every modern country that was targeted has similar laws [2].
That's a use case that was emphasized, but it doesn't appear that the government's actually aware of that limitation:
> M. Pierre Lellouche ... told the National Assembly. “They deliberately use the argument of public freedoms to make money knowing full well that the encryption used to[sic] drug traffickers, to serious [criminals] and especially to terrorists. It is unacceptable that the state loses any control over encryption..."
And whether or not it is supposed to "only apply to terrorism acts", there's no cryptographic algorithm that has a case for "secure unless the government is investigating an act of terrorism".
The point is that French law requires applications to be designed in such a way that key disclosure will allow customer data to be extracted. Signal, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Apple iMessage, and other end-to-end apps would be illegal.
750 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 339 ms ] threadSo this is why they need engineers...
Still waiting for the confirmation email.
oooh my sides! EKS DEEEE
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
EDIT: I should have articulated my question better by saying "in the short term." I agree its foolish to not learn the local language if you plan on staying. But if the office language is French that is going to be almost a non-starter for someone who doesn't already speak it.
It can be intimidating enough changing jobs in your native language. I know Sweden and Berlin use English as the lingua-franca of the office. I just don't know about the French tech scene.
The real challenge for a non-French speaking founder would mainly be in dealings with local authorities. You can't expect public servants to speak any English or have any English-translated documentation / forms available.
As a native English speaker living in France, I would strongly advise anyone considering living and working here that it is absolutely critical to speak, read, and write a competent level of French if one is to be successful.
Sure, if you're going to just live in the center of Paris and spend all your time in the Expat crowd, you can get by, but it's disingenuous to claim that someone wouldn't be at a significant disadvantage in a French company if they only speak English.
I'm aware of several companies that claim they operate in English, but what this really means is that formal meetings and (some) emails are written in English, and all other conversation is in French.
Honestly, I think you're going to be fine without speaking a word.
https://translate.google.com.sg/?ie=UTF-8&hl=en&client=tw-ob....
I was in Berlin, and I was never spoken to in German (since I don't really look German), and I would ask the person if they spoke English just to be polite before I started speaking to them, and they would almost get offended. Actually, I hardly heard any German being spoken.
On the contrary, in Warsaw I had problems getting basic directions in English even if I asked young people on the street. They were either self-conscious or didn't know English, but either way they wouldn't speak to me in English. When I went to mini-markets and places where you'd find less educated people at the cash register, absolutely zero. Not even "bag".
I can tell you that not speaking german was really a burden (again in the long term).
Everyone below 40 speaks english, but as soon as you have to deal with the administration, or just even the doctor, it really was a PITA.
Also, Even the tech support (e.g. for Internet) wasn't allowed to speaks English on phone.
I'm pretty sure the same "issues" apply to any country.
My point wasn't that it's not a problem in the long term, but that in some countries it's also a problem in the short term.
In Poland I really felt unwelcomed on many occasions. The fact that they're extremely nationalistic doesn't help, I guess. I was surprised that even 18-year-olds wouldn't speak English to me. I'm now learning Polish.
Also, you might just have gotten lucky (or me unlucky).
Generalizing is difficult (of course, it's impossible talking about these things without generalizing).
When you have to provide service in German, French and Italian, adding English doesn't require a huge effort :)
My foreign friends would complain mostly about real-estate agents (it's a sellers market, they make no effort).
With me, in Berlin everyone would speak English.
In Warsaw and Wroclaw, if I was brought in by one of the group, the whole group would speak English to not be rude. If it's random people, they wouldn't. Single guys or girls not in a group will speak English to you if you're hanging out with them.
I think it largely depends on who it is you're dealing with.
"uneducated" people and the elderly will be less likely to speak or wanting to speak English (cashiers are the worse, in my experience). Most young people will speak English. Programmers and startup people all speak English. Doctors speak English, etc.
A lot of old people dislike foreigners to a certain extend, however, and I bet some of them wouldn't speak it on purpose even if they could. For instance, an old lady at a drugstore complained to the cashier at the register because I took too long picking some medicine, while "there were Poles waiting in line".
Let's just say that Berlin was more foreign-friendly in my experience.
It's pretty doable in Sweden, too. In Japan, Russia or Argentina, though, you'd be at an enormous disadvantage.
Article 9 of the Basic Law stipulates: "In addition to the Chinese language, English may also be used as an official language by the executive authorities, legislature and judiciary of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region."
So, it's quite easy to get along without Cantonese or Mandarin (or without English, for that matter).
However, without Cantonese, one only has limited access to what's going on in politics, civil society, show biz, etc.
Obviously in Paris more and more people know English since it's a touristic area. But it isn't like Berlin,Amsterdam or Brussels where you can live with very little local language knowledge. Correct french is a pain in the ass to learn, the language is needlessly complicated.
Frankly If I were a "foreigner" (outside the EU) who wants to move to a non English speaking European country, I'd go to Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden or Austria. I lived and worked in all these countries without problem and with little knowledge of the local language.
Just don't come here with 0 french and expect to find work, that's not realistic. If you are an "expat" (i.e. you already have a guaranteed job in France), then by all means...
The government and the administration is trying to improve the climate on founders/visa/startups/tech, and yes, it's far from being perfect and there are a lot of pieces missing and a lot that could be improved, but, at least, they seem to be trying.
And then you come, and just tell people they should go somewhere else "because it will be too hard".
So, I'm all for warning that it won't be all pink and easy, but I don't think it ought to be as hard as you seem to imply.
One thing which is definitely true is learning a few words and know how to say "Hi" in French and that you don't know the language will go a long way.
After, that, if you feel like you want to stay in the country, you will naturally go towards learning the language anyway.
I lived 7 years in the Netherlands, and you can go mostly fine with just English (even though, in some more rural areas, it can still be hard despite the reputation of the country), but learning Dutch helped me integrate and "unlock" situations where English would not have been enough, just because it showed to the people involved I was willing to integrate better in the country and make efforts to be understood.
Let's take an example directly from this announcement: "Apply to the French Tech Visa for Investors: Contact your local French Consulate or the local "Prefecture" (if you already reside in France) and follow the general route to apply for a "Passeport Talent"
Only those who live here will understand what this entails. The prefecture is a branch of regional government that is totally gridlocked with unnecessary paperwork.
- they tell you explicitly you can contact the consulate, that's when you're not in France
- If you're already in France, there is a big chance you've already been in contact with the prefecture, so you'll know what it is. Besides, it's very googleable.
Finally, yes, the prefecture is definitely not the best place to hang out, but I'd be surprised if they did not get very precise and direct instructions on how to take care of those candidates.
We have nice startup here and nice developpers. But you can also find nice thinghs in other EU countries. Business is everywhere...
They won't communicate in French either. They bark at you. And you bark at them. Whoever barks the louder wins.
You will be able to get by just fine in Paris for things like restaurants and hotels, but as soon as you have to deal with the government in any fashion, you absolutely must speak French.
In places other than Paris and the tourist areas of some major cities, it will be very difficult if you don't speak any French.
Mostly irrelevant unfortunately, because the French will expect you to speak French once you are in France. I've experienced this many times in Paris among French people I know can speak English well enough to have a conversation.
You're welcome to come, it's great here. But don't come without wanting to learn French. You'll be unhappy.
People who say they have experienced the contrary typically go to great length to speak and read their native tongue. It doesn't matter how much you tried at home with a book etc... Once you're immersed and have made the decision to understand and speak the local language, it's like your brain goes on steroid. It is difficult to imagine until you've experienced it.
This is a good move by the French, and will help attract entrepreneurs away from other countries (particularly like those just across the channel currently inflicting generational economic damage on themselves.)
Just eyeballing this would indicate going after a German or Fin would likely cost more, because 1. They have similar programs, 2. They don't care about Visas and therefore are less likely to be invested in being or staying in France long-term. If France gives me a visa you can be sure I'm there for more than just my business. 3. Language. 270+ million people speak French, so why not pull from countries and cultures that have some shared history and association.
Seems to me this makes way more sense for France than chasing down Germans, Dutch, Fins or anyone else local.
Also, you're begging the question.
Also, you have to factor in that when the coffers are empty, France may be more willing to sell weapons abroad... So maybe it's not France that sees that harm.
http://www.france24.com/en/20150503-arms-sales-becoming-fran...
I note I have down-voted responses to replies that do not have further responses. Hence, from my point of view, it seems when the argument got difficult, down-voting was resorted to..
note: this comment was also down-voted within 5 minutes, again without comment. Those who never comment, never run the risk of malicious down-votes.
> I note I have down-voted responses to replies that do not have further responses
by "have" I mean, I have received down-votes, not I have down-voted them.
Not surprisingly, it helps the economy: people dont lose their savings, jobs and houses when they get sick in Europe.
> I'd rather have a less strong economy
There are plenty of countries/citizens that can't dictate what they want.
Do competing developing countries have this choice? Why not?
As for Paris, I love Paris but then I'd have a hard time getting work done there. Being near would be enough. I worked in Milan and Geneva and would take the train into Paris for the weekend but not for work.
(it was the classic regional thing: when we saw a car with a '69 license plate, we'd grumble ;p)
not to mention setting up a company costs £14, 20% corporation tax (dropping to 17%), tax back for individuals investing in SEIS companies (which is easy for a firm apply for), and R&D tax credits
That's a bigger deal than it might seem, even if you're recruiting from countries that aren't nominally Anglophone.
If you pick a random engineer in, say, China, there's a lot higher probability that the engineer will speak English than French.
English also opens up India, where most educated people have studied English, and English is actually one of the official languages.
French is only common in countries where French is an official language, most of which have small populations and/or not much of a tech scene.
I confirm!
Leaving the country = Best decision in my life :D
I had chalked it up to some kind of national self-deprecation that is the pride and birthright of true French people :)
There's been a lot of nice french initiatives to promote tech, in the last few years. It's still hard to overcome the anglosphere bias and to promote internationally, but from the inside it's still a nice atmosphere.
It took years to find surprising interest (even passion) in things like biology, geography, or literature for that matter (chemistry is still a big mystery to me, although basic principles seem trivial). Grammar in any language is is still a big no-no.
It might seem ridiculous but if you pick an expensive language course, that adds some proper motivation (with added value of good teachers/materials).
telecommunication, Telekommunikation, Télécommunications/communication électronique, telecommunicatie, telecomunicación, etc.
And yet I still have to rewind a few times in every episode for dialogue that I just can't decypher. Sometimes I never quite get the words.
I moved to Poland from the UK yonks ago, and have equally disastrous - if not worse - language skills as you.
Not long after arriving, I accidentally got a job at a startup, and I'd been led to believe everything was done in English internally: communications; client emails; heck, even variable names in the code, all was in English and I had nothing to fear.
This turned out to be a slight exaggeration; anything in English was the rare exception, rather than the rule.
You know what, though? Even without lessons and fully resenting Polish's grammar, you learn really quick. You also won't be facing this alone; as long as you're actually capable of getting the job done, plenty of local language speakers in your office will bend over backwards to encourage and help you.
Don't let language be the only thing holding you back. If I had my time again, I'd let things like bureaucracy and road safety guide my decision rather than what noises come out of peoples' mouths.
Interesting direction. As a Polish person I have to ask: was your reason to move personal, or did you notice a career opportunity and went after it?
While, personally, the U.K. and Sweden remain the most viable destinations if I were to move abroad, Poland isn't far behind in terms of the personalities of the people I've met, the scenery they've showed me, and the cultural/historical depth there. Obviously, take that with a truck load of salt since I've yet to visit.
As a English-is-my-second-language person I can't imagine naming variables using any other language but English.
English is most of the times more concise than my mother language (Polish), and it is much easier to share code on the net, find help on stackoverflow, etc.
If one were to pick Polish variable names, would the default be the neutral forms[1]? I'm sure this applies to other languages that also have forms of complex declension compared to English. Which would make more sense in Polish?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_grammar#Nouns
If another developer comes on board, will their English be fluent enough to know those terms? There's also a huge risk in having a translation error. We're programmers, not translators.
For general variable names, I agree. On the other hand, in my experience, when the programmers aren't fluent enough in English, if English is imposed, they tend to choose really bad variable names and not comment their code properly. So I tend to impose clear names/doc over imposing a specific language.
Another factor to consider is that if we write in language that has some constructs (e.g. C - if/then/else/while/return/int/double/class/void etc.) then writing:
looks awkward.Also one has to consider popular libraries and functions/methods/classes in them are English based, so this would add even more awkwardness to the code:
I agree with you, but the example you gave is more common than you think. We tend to over-estimate people's language skills. (keep in mind, English is not my native tongue, I'm including myself in there and it's not meant as an attack, just something we need to deal with, and I would not outright exclude bilingual code)
That's why my startup uses language-neutral variable names like i, j, k and x, y, z.
Joke aside, for anyone curious: we use such i, j variables for abstract logic like a counter (e.g. i=0 at the beginning of a loop, and gets incremented by 1 each time the loop runs), or booleans maybe (e.g. P=0 or 1, true or false). But generally it is considered good practice to give names to variables that are self-explanatory (e.g. studentName or vehicle_age) for readability and ease of understanding. Even counters and booleans should be significant when possible (e.g. "hasResponded" or "day_num").
On topic, I think english or not doesn't matter theoretically. Its cultural and indeed 80% of computing/code happens in english on earth (no source, waddayathink!). What matters imho is that semantics are correct (both human and machine language...) and reasonably meaningful to a collaborator.
To anybody wanting to know better: read open-source code. Best school there is, actual practice.
Admittedly there was a selection bias - I wasn't ever hired to audit perfectly good software - but it was remarkably common.
Then one day he found his future wife who could speak only in German, and he picked it up instantly.
And English will still be widely used. Even after the rest of the EU breaks up..
But yeah, English being the modern lingua franca is a major benefit to SV, London, etc.
I took three years of German in high school and a semester in college. I could never get the der/die/das stuff to stick. Later on I started reading German fiction for fun and then I got frustrated because I know the verb but not who did what to whom and then I got a lot better in the grammatical agreement area quickly.
I have gone through many years of on and off anime fandom without formal schooling. When I do pick up a book about the Japanese language, I often think "that is obvious" or alternately realized I'd heard the phrase many times without understanding it.
When I was first learning French 22 years ago, my teacher, an older woman who'd grown up and studied in France, shared a funny little joke about French women: their wrinkles start from the lips and spread outward across their face. This was said because they keep their lips far tighter, nearly pursed, than one does when speaking English. I've noticed and paid attention to how the French use their mouths when speaking ever since. It's been immensely helpful.
The mouth is much more pursed, there are more sibilants, sounds either come from the very back of the throat or the very tip of the tongue.
You'll get better results within 1 month living in the target place
The math/tech background helped a lot in the beginning. The texts there are more structured than normal, so you can get functional quickly without being conversational.
Moving there is the best thing that happened to me. Don't let the language discourage you from going anywhere. You'll struggle, and overcome.
Would you do an ELI5?
I don't think that's a proper topic for HN though.
When the Prime Minister was asked what this means, she replied with "Brexit means Brexit." http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36782922
When people have asked specific questions like "am I going to be able to continue to live here?" or "am I going to continue to receive scientific funding that is distributed by the EU?" or "how is this going to affect my business?", they haven't recieved answers.
In the words of Douglas Adams, "This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
the UK Government is has stated it will guarantee the right for EU citizens to remain, if the same right is given to Britons in rEU, however the European Union refuses to engage on the issue ("no negotiation without notification")
> Home Office says in letter that it cannot give unilateral assurances until status of Britons in other EU countries is protected
It appears that some people in the union want to retaliate to the British for wanting to leave the union and thus insulting the honour of Juncker et al. They are even ready to shoot their own foot in retaliation, instead of just accepting that Britain leaves and life goes on, and new agreements are made, and trade goes on based on new agreements, for mutual benefit.
Most assuredly the relationship of Britain and EU will have to be formed based on proposals and answers from both sides. It would be really, really strange if EU could make general schemes of preferential trade with Cuba and South Sudan but not Britain, out of sheer malice.
"Home Office says in letter that it cannot give unilateral assurances until status of Britons in other EU countries is protected"
(emphasis mine)
Sorry, I didn't know what you were referring to.
:-)
edit: typos
Either the universities could invest more in a better computer science degree, but finding good fundings is probably difficult for public universities whose budget is decided by the government. Or the engineering schools could join the 21st century.
French billionaire Xavier niel recognizes the problem and tries to address it with his "42" school[1], I wonder how much impactful this has been
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/42_(school)
Go to a graduation ceremony at a top school (note: it's delayed 1-2 years after graduation) and you'll learn that the top 10% have ALL left the country, no exception.
(I'm talking about the top in terms of technical abilities, entrepreneurship and/or skills that are valuable to execute , not necessarily school grades).
But i am in an engineering school, i am in the top 10%, and it is true.
There was even a note from the ministry this year asking engineering school to stop the mandatory semester in a foreign university for all engineering student, to try to reduce the drain.
There are some schools which are relatively young and focus on coding. Historically they were expensive (for French schools), even though one of them is now free thanks to the generosity of a French billionaire. They recruit students with different profiles than the traditional "Grandes Écoles" and they get much less recognition from French employers, especially large companies. Because of that, their top students may indeed be inclined to move abroad, where degrees matter less.
In the more generalist, traditional engineering Grandes Écoles, however, the phenomenon is a lot less prevalent. Some students do move abroad, but my experience is that it is not correlated to their competence. Those with propensity to found companies are more likely to go to the US, but that is mostly because the ecosystem there is like no other. On the other hand, you may have noticed that some large US companies (Google, Facebook...) have been opening research labs in Paris, while top French companies such as Criteo send their marketing department to the US but keep development in France. This is not only because talent is cheaper (others have already explained how low salaries for not mean low costs) but also because top technical talent doesn't necessarily want to emigrate. This is cliché, but Fabrice Bellard is still living in France, and Yann Le Cun moved back. :)
How much does the dynamic part of the French society offered you for you work?
I am dubious because as mentioned by hiq above, you would need to wait much more than 2 years to figure out who are the "best". Another reason I am dubious is that working in France or at least in a French company is still the best way to climb the hierarchy fast when you're coming from X/Central Paris/ Mines de Paris/Telecom/etc... except for a few specific fields (finance comes to mind).
For those in those French "Ivy league" it makes sense to stay in a non-meritocracy / credentials based company then, but for all other engineering schools, it's a better deal to get a 6 figures salary job in the US, where it's much closer to a meritocracy than in traditional French companies.
In US tech you certainly see some Harvard, Stanford, mit graduates, but also a lot of non ivy league colleges with jobs such as software engineer, program manager, management, etc. One extreme example is Satya Nadella who got his MS from University of Wisconsin. Even if is undergrad degree was prestigious is India, it doesn't have the ivy League "power" similar to a X/Centrale/Mines in France or Harvard in the US in traditional jobs.
However, if you're from these schools but have nothing except your hard work to sell, you're better off in UK/USA (and your alumni network definitely extends there)... but you're likely a Parisian with friends/family/housing in Paris, so there are strong incentives to stay in the place you already are. Your school name alone will afford you a career decent enough for little effort.
For someone from any other school who ain't Parisian, there is no incentive to emigrate to Paris. The opportunities are much better in the UK/USA to the point of insanity, and it may even be easier logistically (it was for me).
For an European. Why the hell would he go to Paris? It's not even worth if for French people who ain't already in Paris.
Many of these students do start their careers elsewhere, partly due to the way the curriculum is planned (which leads many of them to finish their studies abroad). If you do look for them for your company/startup you'll be able to see them, although you could have to dig a bit deeper due to the small size of these programs (advertising in one specific French university does not have the same impact as in the UK/US and most other countries in the world).
Surprising because if a first world nation with high quality life in so many ways faces this problem what about the rest of the world.
Moved for the job. Stayed abroad for the job and the money.
Then whenever you look at what the country has to offer if you ever go back, you're like: "Fuckkkkkkkk" (yeah, it's that much of a disaster).
There are of course some exceptions, but right now I plan to try to move to the USA.
But when a new grad from a top school can get 40k at a startup, no bonus no equity, or 70-80k total comp at Google, it's a no-brainer.
The reason he chooses salary over equity is because it's a safer bet.
I got ripped off at the first two startups I worked for but learned my lessons.
Don't be busy, create obvious value along the actual company line.
You're most likely not working for the founders, it's really the stakeholders and at least some of these have money. Make sure the money is found for your salary (believe me they find the money for the lawyers).
Be prepared to move if necessary.
It's an uneasy compromise at first, but eventually it becomes clear the best interest is not having the best employees constantly flirting with a healthy stream of recruiters.
It's been getting way easier each year. This book[1] by Criteo's founder explores the question in details.
> the talent coming out of all the grandes ecoles seems definitely underutilized
I'm really not sure what you're hinting at here, though. Some of the concerned people will choose more relaxed jobs over intensive ones, but that's a personal lifestyle choice, and not really frowned upon.
1: "They Told Me It Was Impossible: The Manifesto of the Founder of Criteo" https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=_gA0DQAAQBAJ
It seriously hedges your personal risk.
So my advice to new comers would be to pay attention to this when you visit for interviews. Do you feel reluctance, are people hesitant and searching for words when speaking English? Could be a sign they're not used to it. If they speak casually OTOH (even with strong accent and the odd mistakes) it's likely they're used to it: good.
My guess is other have too. Lisbon is supposedly becoming a hot tech hub. Regardless, it's a wonderful city.
Additionally, if you have a Bachelor/Master degree in STEM, you can easily get a Blue Card if you receive a contract paying over 50,800 EUR/year. [1] Lower salaries would still enable you to obtain a regular work visa (which is specific to the job title and company).
I've heard Germany is a difficult country to establish a company (GmbH). I can't speak as an entrepreneur, but as an employee it isn't difficult at all to get a work visa from the government. I'd say the only difficulty is that you need to have every document prepared, with a spare copy, and make sure you've provided all the necessary information. German bureaucrats are especially irritable when things are missing/incomplete.
Germany is desperate for skilled workers. You don't even need to speak German to get a job in a big city like Berlin or Frankfurt.
As someone from North America, I'd highly recommend you consider Germany if you'd like to work for a start-up. Berlin is the start-up capital of Europe, and there are so many companies looking for talent you can quickly climb the corporate ladder/salary by moving companies every 12-18 months. You won't be paid as much as in Silicon Valley, but rents are sane and I'd say the quality of life is higher than in the US.
[0] http://www.make-it-in-germany.com/en/for-qualified-professio...
[1] http://www.bamf.de/EN/Infothek/FragenAntworten/BlaueKarteEU/...
Getting a self-employed VISA is not easy unless you have some serious credentials. My partner has three degrees, two post-graduate, from highly regarded US universities; an extensive profile of speaking engagements; a very, very solid financial standing; and a solid business plan. The IHK (who reviews all business plans for self-employed applications) still said "No" but begrudgingly gave the green-light when presented with a book contract from a well known technical publisher.
I have no degrees, but a financially viable consulting business of some years, and a lengthy professional background. Three years later, over 12 foreigners office appointments, a UG (affectionately known as the mini-GmbH) with over 12K founding capital, a high-priced lawyer, over a 120K in USDEUR transfers, and a visit from the police to confiscate my passport over Christmas, my self-employment visa is no further along than the day I first submitted it.
Still, incomparably better than US immigrations. I'm certainly stuck in some weird, exceptional state that has confused even my lawyer.
Consider Berlin. It is wonderful here, definitely. Rents are rising, however, and (sadly, in my opinion) you do not need to learn German. I know of far too many people who have spent numerous years here without speaking more than a phrase or two of deutsche.
If you want to start a company/be self-employed DO NOT follow the (typische amerikanische) DIY process. Factor in costs for tax advisers and lawyers.
If you want to self-employ and like the Netherlands: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DAFT
If you recently graduated or are still in school: Irish working holiday
I'm sure there are others, but those are what come to mind if you're an American who wants to live/work and Europe and you don't have a sponsor and aren't funded (if you have capital, you have far more options, of course).
"..The Blue Card is an approved EU-wide work permit (Council Directive 2009/50/EC)[1] allowing high-skilled non-EU citizens to work and live in any country within the European Union, excluding Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom.."
Though that is subject to change depending on the political climate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Card_(European_Union)
Uruguay for some reason is home to one of the more active development communities. But as far as visas I think you need one of those retirement visas or something.
Panama might be the easiest to get into, register companies etc. althought that technically is Central America. All in all, even in places like Venezuela with its crazy economy but that happens to be extremely favorable for service export, you will find good opportunities for startups due to extreme low cost of living, good university networks and general lack of competition and innovation. Internet speed leave a lot to be desired but it is workable. Electricity prices in some of this countries is way cheaper so that lends itself well to datacenters. Of course, those savings will need to cover stuff like private security, which is kind of a necessity.
This may have been true at one point in time, but it's certainly no longer the case. I think this myth comes from a mix of two things:
a) differences in intonation that some people (mostly Americans) interpret as aggressive or hostile, when really they're not
b) the possibility that this was true in the past (e.g. during the 50's, perhaps because the French were eager to see stationed GIs leave)
That said, you'll get by, meet a lot of nice people from all over, get to vacation regularly in places which are "once in a lifetime travels" for most Americans, etc.
Or amybe, you know, because of the historical rivalry between France and England :)
It may well be that the right firm, in the right part of France (the South is normally a little friendlier), you're going to be fine. In Paris though? It seems like it is almost a national sport to be a little rude to non-native speakers, and a lot more rude to people who just try and get by in English.
But if you're planning to move to France, to start a French start-up business, and employ French employees, it is probably a good idea to learn some French.
As an English speaker, the michelthomas.com courses point out that you already know a lot more French than you think. :-)
Of course not endorsing anything about those topics, just saying that forbiding any debate on those topics may not be a long-term solution to solve those societal questions. We get the popular far-right party FN for some reason I think.
Edit to bring "my damn sources": about health insurance http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/14/amendements/2252/AN/801... incitation to anorexia http://www.lefigaro.fr/flash-actu/2015/04/02/97001-20150402F... saying you should not do abortion: https://www.senat.fr/questions/base/1999/qSEQ990415534.html for other topics, finding sources should be even easier
Our freedom of speech, like in the rest of europe, is slightly more restrictive than in the US (as in: there is a concept of restricted hate speech) but the fact that the FN even exists should go a long way to showcase that you don't get jailed for stuff like that.
And in the future, if you're going to bring extraordinary claims to HN, bring a damn source.
Edit to your edit: I don't think you yourself have read those sources you linked.
Health insurance: What you linked is an amendment that adds sanctions to illegally refusing social security coverage. Whether you think that's OK or not is irrelevant - it's not a speech issue.
"saying you should not do abortion": You are grossly misrepresenting what that is. Abortion is considered an integral right for french women. What your link says is that it's illegal to try to prevent them.
> Cet article punit d'un emprisonnement de deux ans et/ou d'une amende de 30 000 francs le fait d'empêcher ou de tenter d'empêcher une interruption volontaire de grossesse ou les actes préalables : soit en pertubant l'accès aux établissements d'hospitalisation publics ou privés satisfaisant aux dispositions de l'article L. 176 du code de la santé publique ; soit en exerçant des menaces ou tout acte d'intimidation à l'encontre des personnels médicaux et non médicaux travaillant dans ces établissements ou des femmes venues y subir une interruption volontaire de grossesse.
To translate: Preventing, or attempting to prevent a voluntary abortion is punished by two years in prison and/or a 30000 francs fine. "Either by preventing access to hospitals or threatening/intimidating working personnel or patients."
http://www.agipi.com/espace-public/consulter-nos-experts/san...
"Depuis le 1er janvier 2007, des sanctions contre toute personne qui, par quelque moyen que ce soit, inciterait les assurés sociaux à ne plus s’affilier à un organisme de Sécurité sociale ou à ne plus payer leurs cotisations sont applicables. Elles prévoient, entre autre, une peine de six mois de prison et/ou une amende allant de 7 500 euros à 15 000 euros."
Translation: incitating people to have no health insurance at all can get you to jail (up to 6 months).
About abortion: http://www.20minutes.fr/societe/1931599-20160927-ivg-gouvern...
"Si l’amendement du gouvernement est voté, le délit d’entrave concernera désormais les sites qui véhiculent «des allégations ou une présentation faussée, pour induire en erreur dans un but dissuasif sur la nature et les conséquences d’une IVG»". If it is not limitation of freedom of speech, I think it is very close.
http://www.france24.com/fr/20161129-france-episcopat-proposi...
"Si le texte est voté, ces faits seront punis des mêmes peines que l’entrave physique à l’avortement ou à l’information sur l’avortement, soit deux ans de prison et 30 000 euros d’amende."
So presenting biased information about abortion (at least in the "wrong" direction) can get you to jail (up to 2 years). If my sources are correct, this proves my points.
PS: sorry for French quotes. Too lazy to fully translate them.
As your previous source said, not having health insurance is illegal in France. We're a far cry from your original "saying that you don't need health insurance". You can say that as much as you want. You just can't push other people to put themselves in an illegal situation.
> If it is not limitation of freedom of speech, I think it is very close.
[Translated context: It would become illegal to falsify facts about the consequences of abortion]
I want to be very clear: The american concept of "Freedom of speech" does not exist in most of Europe. In most of the world outside of the US in fact. It's even a stretch to say it exists in the US.
When people think "limitations on freedom of speech" they immediately think China and Iran. But in the US, I can't threaten the president (or people in general, but nobody's gonna jail me for that). I can't yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater. I could give you a lot of american examples which are far more grey area than what you've given me in these sources. The US has these limitations, generally for public safety.
In the context of a US-centric forum, claiming that "you can get jailed for speaking against abortions" is abhorrent because the US is still at the stage where abortions are not considered a fundamental right, and there is an ongoing debate about it. Therefore, you think "well, then, half the US would go to jail".
In the context of a country that does have a framework around abortion, that does make it a fundamental right and where it's essentially a non-issue... then it's a lot easier to see why it's illegal to publish false information about it.
This is a country where gays and muslims are treated with respect, where women's rights are respected and where public health is highly valued. In that context, these restrictions are, like american ones, a matter of public safety.
You assume that the state is always right. I agree it is right in most cases, but not always. And calling arguments like "public safety", like "fighting terrorism", is a way for a government to have more power than it ought to (at least from the point of view of its libertarian citizen).
Voting a law should not necessarily close the debate around it. Societal truths may change: "false information" may just be opposite opinions. Saying it is false is not enough to discard it. A non-issue for you (e.g. abortion) may be an issue for the guy or girl next door.
Activists should not be banned from having strange opinions as it is the root of democratic debates. Let them be ashamed in society, but do not jail them. Today's fundamental rights may be revoked tomorrow because society may someday realize that it was, in the end, not such a good idea.
This is basically a political tradeoff between public safety and free speech/freedom in general. I personnally and currently support more free speech. You look like rather supporting public safety. I'd be happy to read your opinion on that topic.
> I generally agree that "inciting" is a loosely defined term and I, too, dislike how easy of a tool it can be for political censorship.
I don't particularly like the idea of restrictions on free speech. But I also don't particularly like when people's health and livelihoods, public safety, the earth's climate are all damaged by sleazy tactics from people who want to make a quick buck.
I don't like that said restrictions are a tool that can be abused by those in power ... but isn't that just about everything? Surveillance? Police forces?
We make tradeoffs because our world is not made of absolutes. The US makes those tradeoffs as well, the line is just elsewhere. Being a "terrorism sympathizer" in the US will potentially earn you a free trip to Cuba. And that is also a tool that has been used for political censorship.
When I look at the end result, though, we have a country where abortion is a right and saying "god hates fags" is not. The US is the other way around. I know which outcome I prefer.
This has nothing to do with freedom of speech.
And since when is it illegal to talk about homosexuals, non-white people or jews ?
See: Eric Zemmour
You're allowed to talk about them provided the contents of your speech is "they're great and I love everything about them".
I'm not particularly fond of Zemmour, but his multiple condemnations absolutely qualify as political censorship.
- Condamnation pour incitation à la discrimination raciale en 2011
- Condamnation pour provocation à la haine envers les musulmans
- Condamnation d'I-Télé pour "rupture abusive de contrat"
One is about racial discrimination. One is about inciting hate against muslims. The last one is about a private company. The guy also happens to have written a book about gays where... I'll just quote wikipedia: ""gays" would have been stigmatized and isolated, like the lepers of old."
Help me out here. How do you get from there to "You're only allowed to talk about gays if you say 'they're great and I love everything about them'"?
I truly urge you to read up on this affaire. What he actually said really wasn't that big a deal.
Just to recontextualize this: This is a thread about the viability of startups in France. As I mentioned a bit further up, there are "no hate speech" rules all over Europe. Germany for example is far, far stricter than France about it ... and Berlin has a vibrant startup scene.
I generally agree that "inciting" is a loosely defined term and I, too, dislike how easy of a tool it can be for political censorship. But there's worlds between those details and some of the claims I'm finding in this thread.
Or am I still missing your point?
I wrote a bit more about this here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13411875
The law makes racism, antisemitism and homophobia illegal. That's fine for me.
Your point concerning talk about the aforementioned minorities has already been answered.
For example, "expressing support for acts of terror" is an imprisonable offense, and it has been interpreted incredibly broadly by the courts, to the point that drunk people have been sent to prison for years over tasteless jokes. Similarly, simply browsing websites that are deemed in support of terrorism: a man from Chartres recently received a two-year sentence for the latter.
It's fair to say that the current climate is pretty Orwellian. But if you're not a brown person or a Muslim, you're not what prosecutors are after.
To assess this properly, it would be interesting to know what startups in different countries pay to lawyers.
Speaking as somebody who's lived in France, Greece, the UK, the US and Sweden: France is by far the most "multiculturalism-friendly" place of all these. Yes, even more than Sweden.
Like most French people, I'm not proud of my country. But this is something I can be proud of.
(Disclaimer: Some cities are of course less kind to strangers than others; it's not a uniform utopia)
I come from the maghreb region and lived in France for a while. I experienced racism at work and outside of it.
If you are arab looking or black, you better emmigrate to another country like UK/US or even germany for a better chance. If you don't you are doomed.
For those who don't understand what I'm talking about check a movie called "La Haine".
And I agree with you, it might be different in other cities.
"Man names Wi-Fi network “Daesh 21,” prosecuted under French anti-terror law. New law forbids “public praise” of terrorism, punishable by up to 7 years in prison."
Could you expand on that? I'm French, living and working near Paris and I would be interested to hear what limits do you think of.
Personaly I think it is no worse that any other Western country.
Edit: The limits I can think of are more from media watchdogs, which can be ignored (just look at Dieudonné). Or you can be sued by anti racist/anti _____phobe associations for slander, but I would not qualify that as a limit on freedom of speech like can exist in other countries.
I don't see either what you mean with freedom of speech problems, except maybe if it's about holocaust denial or things like that which are punished by law, here. But I guess most people won't be bothered.
State of emergency is indeed a problem, not to mention that there's a high chance we'll be targeted again by terrorism.
The only difference with US or Canada is that religion extremism is more "tolerated" in those countries, but that is NOT an issue for startups. Unless you're doing a religion startup??!?
The real issue for startups going to France is not freedom of speech. It's red tape, lack of practicality, a bit more corruption (compared to Canada or New Zealand), and the lack of openness from the general population towards capitalism and innovation.
There is a vast amount of what would be considered incendiary or illegal discussion in France, that occurs on Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and dozens of other US platforms.
Those types of services, Google included, are gateways & amplifiers that enable a much larger ecosystem for tech start-ups. Censorship drives or keeps them away, which is one of the reasons why the US will perpetually dominate such in the West.
The latest anti free speech movement taking over Europe, is the "fake news" authoritarianism. Having bureaucrats decide what is legally to be considered news; aka an excuse for increasing government censorship. Major European nations are moving aggressively to strictly limit such. Should Breitbart be covered by freedom of speech? I think it's obvious that they should. In Germany or France it would not be, they'd immediately seek to destroy them.
Facebook is a $369 billion tech behemoth that could never exist anywhere but the US. It's probably worth more than every public technology company in all of the EU combined.
Related recent news story: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/05/french-teen-ge...
Give a specific example or avoid baseless accusation.
"This specific visa can be used for talent coming from anywhere in the world. As an example, we are aware of a recent senior hire from the US that got his visa returned to him in his passport exactly 28 days from submission. This specific visa puts an individual on track to Indefinite Leave to Remain and Citizenship with no need to stick with a particular employer."
So yes, corporate tax and personal income tax applies, aswell as other stuff. You just have to figure out how much of this tax will be cancelled or refunded (usually this is the kind of infos that get shared in french startup networks).
The personal income taxes apply though.
The other huge problem with France (and Europe in general) is the problem that you can't fire bad/unneeded employees easily.
Continental Europe is a bad environment for young companies that need to be agile. Too much red tape and regulation. And when you survive all that, the state is going to take most of your profits as taxes and compulsory social contributions (and compulsory non-social contributions cough German IHK cough).
EU countries can come up with as many visa and incubator schemes as they like. But they won't attract many entrepreneurs. Because if I'm an entrepreneur in the position to start a business in another country then I'm going to choose the best one: The USA.
(I'm an European just btw.)
You are contradicting your own point. A startup with zero profit can still be taxed at a very high rate and pay almost zero taxes simply because there is no profit to be taxed. But the rule would still apply in this case.
On your 30k, you get 1925€ per month (23k/yr) after corporate tax/social security etc. We call this "net" even though income tax is due on top of that.
For income tax, you pay taxes according to the following brackets (on yearly income) :
- 0€ to 9700€ : 0%
- 9701€ to 26791€ : 14%
- 26791€ to 71826€ : 30%
That means for a single person with no children, you pay an incone tax of 234€/yr, or 20€/month.
In fact, the tax we will be a bit lower than your (correct) calculation, because the calculation should be made on 90% of the income only.
So, the result is 1530 € (there's another insignificant reduction after calculation). And that's an effective 6,6% tax rate.
Why is this comment dead? It was more or less my point, which that a lot of unqualified migrants, mostly from Africa and Asia, has no positive economic impact, since we have NOTHING to offer to them (no job, no future). So I am opposed to more unqualified migrants coming for economic reasons. Syrian refugees, on the other hand, I think we should help them.
I also grew up and lived in France for 20+ years and have lived in UK for 5+ years. It's true that I earn more in UK than in France but for example to compare public health systems, although both are free, NHS is really the worse and it does not seem it's going to get any better in the future.
Is there even an incentive to work? What are the unemployment benefits?
So what you are saying is that it is a great place if you are content with the government saving your life when you are ill without expecting hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills that will ruin the rest of your life? Without considering whether you are able to pay, as if you were a human being that deserves help and humanity? And helping you if you lose your job??!?!
As you see, neither of them helps the discussion a lot, as they are aggressive and the typical reaction would be to take a defensive position.
> Is there even an incentive to work?
Most of the people there work. A little bit later, as they take more vacation. And they survive. And on average wouldn't trade it for an American lifestyle.
It is a matter of life choices. And the point is that these programs enhance mobility so more people can choose, which is better.
25 years of economic stagnation, low innovation, increasing marginalization of France as a consequential economy in the global order (they've been sinking down the list for 40 years), perpetual high unemployment, and a GDP per capita that has failed to keep up to such a dramatic degree that it needs to climb 70% to catch the US.
With results like those, the tax payers are clearly not getting a good return on their non-free education system.
Not to mention the median wage growth is four to five times faster in the US than in France. So much for your theory.
Demographically France is about 80% white. The US median white household has an income of $73,000 as of 2016 ($108,000 with a college education) and a median net worth of nearly $150,000. Both higher than France. I use the direct demographic comparison, because it would be absurd to compare an 8th generation French family to a first or second generation Latin American family in the US (the US is 63% white by comparison, with far more immigration on a percentage basis in the last 40 years than France has seen).
The US has a superior university education system. It's not even remotely close. That has been the case globally since WW2. The rest of the world has been trying to catch up and copy what the US accomplished with its universities, for decades. The top 50 US universities put France to shame.
The US has a far lower unemployment rate. The US is a high innovation economy, France is a low innovation economy, which you can witness across nearly every economic area in comparing the US to France. The US is superior to France in: manufacturing, agriculture, aerospace, software, Internet broadly, mobile, medtech, biotech & pharma, and energy. The US has a far more dynamic small business economy than France does, with a much more liberal entrepreneur culture. The US has less air pollution than France; NYC has dramatically cleaner air than Paris.
Per the OECD better life index, the bottom 10% in the US are far better off than the bottom 10% in France. The US poverty line is also much higher than it is in France.
Better infrastructure in France? Eurozone spending on infrastructure per dollar of GDP, is now below that of the US, and that's really saying something because the US level is far too low. How long do you suppose France can continue to maintain what it does have, with such persistently low wage growth, such persistently low GDP growth, such high taxes and high regulation?
Did you subtract health insurance premiums, co-pays, and deductibles? Nowadays, for a family of 3 that could run around $500 out-of-pocket per month for employee premiums alone. And that's before adding employer-paid premiums, which are usually 80-90% of the entire premium cost, which could otherwise be going straight to employee pocket.
> I use the direct demographic comparison, because it would be absurd to compare an 8th generation French family to a first or second generation Latin American family in the US
And yet you're comparing a 5th generation New England family in the US to a first generation Lebanese family in France? OK then. And yes, Lebanese would be statistically white.
> The US has a superior university education system.
And a superior college debt system. Did you subtract college debt payments from your "median disposable income" as well by the way?
> The US is superior to France in:
Capitalism. Yes, US is indeed superior to France in that. Which is exactly what GP meant by benefiting 5%.
Just because other countries have different systems, does not mean it is not working out for them, or that we need to start doing silly number comparisons that say nothing about the culture of each country.
France is doing pretty good in the engineering department, naval, nuclear and aeronautics are top notch. I would guess that the university system is not that bad eh?
The US has a great learning system for higher education, and the expensive part is covered with the high salaries you get afterwards. Plus the best part of being in America, always be in the front row for new movies, videogames, etc (well, Japan sometimes gets the games first, but oh well)
So don't be a hater, just go out and explore stuff. Diversity is what makes us great.
Everyone who has ever done recruiting in a french IT company noticed that 80 to 90% of the resumes you receive come from North African countries (old colonies, mainly Algeria and Tunisia), that try to get a job in order to get a Visa. Most of them are unqualified, but they just "go for it".
Now, is this initiative going to lead to most of them pretending to want to start a company ? And how is the program going to filter qualified individuals to opportunists ?
This aside, for the engineer visas, it requires getting a job offer from one of the "100+ leading French Start-Ups", which means you presumably have to pass whatever requirements those hiring managers impose on you as well.
Alten is a technology and engineering consulting company, which means, in the context of the French market, that when a company, need a particular profile (like java dev) to staff a position for a set amount of time (like for the expected duration of a project), they'll contract Alten for a developer, java, for x months.
Does it track market rates? I've worked for a company before that took fresh grads, and relied strongly on them never entering the market for themselves and realising what market rate was.
The problem is knowing the market rate.
Do you have a period of time you are contracted to work? If you can make friends in the Paris dev community, you might be able to find out how good/bad your pay is.
And I'm too much of a lazy ass to look for another job. Also I have few reason right now to seek a higher salary.
They're know for paying shit, and there are arrangements between agencies to not compete with each other.
Actual salaries at these places have been on a slow downward trend for many years.
Looks one you're one of them if that's what you've got? ;)
Remove 25% of that to have an idea of your net salary. (Those 25% are mostly for your retirement plan, social security and unemployment insurance. All of those are mandatory)
Expect to pay between 1 and 2 months net salary in yearly incomes taxes.
Monthly gross income: $10000
Federal tax $1494
Medicare $144
Social Security $616
CA Income Tax $751
CA Disability $89
Pretax deductions:
Medical $56
Dental $5
Vision $2
Monthly take-home amount: $6843 (68.4% of gross)
Is that total cost to employer for that employee? Or are there additional expenses that are not considered part of employee gross income but instead fall under "employer pays for them" category?
https://framework.gusto.com/the-true-cost-to-hire-an-employe...
Two random results pulled from a search:
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/michael-w-chapman/califo...
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/07/us/millionaires-consider-l...
edit: s/mo/year :D
Basically if you're without any dependent, you may not see it as worth it, but once you have a family it really starts paying off.
The education system you're referring to is not free at all. The very substantial income taxes in France pay for it.
This is really an outlier. The US average for employee premiums is $104/month for individuals and $392/month for families.
I pay $0 for health insurance, for example, and what I get is perfectly good.
>I have a brother that works in a pretty normal job earning $42,000 per year (not an outsized salary in the US), he pays $27 per month for his health insurance through his employer, and it's a nice plan. That isn't unusual in the US
My point is that most people in 'pretty normal jobs' pay considerably more for healthcare.
That's like my whole point… You'll effectively get less money than in the US, but you're subsidising a fraternal economy which you enjoy too.
US universities are free. The money you don't pay in taxes covers the cost.
What evidence would you hold up to suggest the French fraternal economy system is the one to mimic? As opposed to Sweden, Germany, or the UK, which have all produced superior results the last few decades with different approaches from that of France.
What???
See for example: Sweden's economic deregulation and lowering of taxes, which prompted their significant economic boom.
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2009/0803/international-invest-...
You obviously don't have the slightest idea of what you're talking about, but you don't care, you keep talking and talking, the only thing that matters it to end with "Murica is better than anything else".
"Superior results" are, to be fair, quite debatable:
- UK got an edge via fiscal dumping, hurting its neighbours. This is also what Ireland is doing now, which really gives "good results", but is hurting all other EU countries (Luxembourg some the same, some other countries as well).
- Germany has a lower unemployment rate, but with way more precarious working conditions for many workers.
- I really don't know about Sweden so I won't speak about it, but I'm going to read the piece you linked, it looks interesting.
I could also say that France has superior results, if you look at other metrics:
- productivity per hour: the USA is #1 with a very very small edge over Germany and France, both #2. The UK, Japan are far behind
- Gini coefficient! This one is very dear to me. We're doing pretty well, and our evolution over 10 years has been better than most of our neighbours[1]
I believe that the biggest problem we're facing nowadays (and have been facing for a couple decades) is that increased globalisation allows companies to go "shopping" for their fiscal system, and put countries in competition. This creates a drive to get lower tax rates than your neighbours, which is a bad spiral and in the end deeply hurts countries (however, if you happen to disagree with that, then I'm afraid we have fundamentally different world view, and I don't really have the energy or will to debate if further, sorry). Ireland is a prime example of this.
> why would the "French fraternal" system be worthy of being copied given its weak results?
My goal is not for it to be copied a bit everywhere but, really, for it to be considered with fairness, and not just shunned and mocked because of propaganda and preconceptions.
I actually have a in mind couple great pieces I'd like to share on those topics; unfortunately they're in French. I'll look a bit around for potential translations.
1: some data: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/table.do?tab=table&language...
Lots of evidence to support that, delightfully summarized in "The Spirit Level" by Wilkinson and Pickett, among others.
That's not even close to cover the same things.
On top of that, I have to pay for health insurance, deductibles, and retirement savings, which I assume my French counterpart wouldn't have to separately pay for.
The French culture on this is very different, people simply don't talk about money and salary.
I found a starting salary survey in a business magazine that indicated graduates of the top 5 engineering schools are getting about 40-55K/year
But that was not the point, the point was that people talk about "raw", or "after taxes", while it does not mean the same. In France when they talk about "income after taxes" (~23% salary taxes), it is before the equivalent of US Federal+State taxes. These ~23% are about "social contribution" (mandatory healthcare, retirement, unemployment, etc.). Only then, the income taxes are computed on what remains, depending on your family situation (having children impact a lot in France compared to the US). For a single person it can be up to ~ two-months salary.
(City taxes exist there as well after that).
I hope their system proves sustainable in the long run... I wish I had a way to participate in it (I could apply for the visa, I suppose), but it would be difficult for my US academic wife to break into French academia[2] at a suitable level.
[1] In a bad year, we're talking $13K in deductibles for a family of four on an average insurance plan.
[2] Now that I think about it, she studies French domestic politics. Hmmm...
35-40k for master's degree from everywhere else.
If you don't have a master's just forget about it ^^
Life -- not work. Working there was a nightmare. The pay is low, and while you can live on it, you're not really saving. For a while I was part of the startup community there and while there are many great programs from the government, there is a bit of a local mafia deciding things. Investors were so unsophisticated that technology itself seemed to scare them.
All-in-all, if I could have made it work, I would have done so in a heartbeat. Living there is simply a small piece of heaven on earth. There's just no way to viably work there that I could find.
The schools are good, but they are also going to be very hard on your kids unless they are very young. Homework volume is high, and my own cynical view is that at least part of it is training kids for the experience of dealing with the difficulties of filling out lots of paperwork and dealing with the French civil service.
Source: Worked for two years in a French overseas territory.
The indigent and extremely poor have special programs whereby they are exempted from this. *You can buy additional insurance that will increase the coverage to 100% and/or remove the need to pre-pay. That comes with the tradeoff of having to use the provider network that the insurance company has (a la US healthcare).
Do you pay to use the highway, or do you drive on the highway for free?
If you can use a service without handing over money for the use of that service, it's reasonable to call it "free".
Yes, because part of my paycheck goes towards that. And every time I fill up. You seem to fall into the trap of "if I don't hand over money at the same time as I make use of something, it's free." Politicians love to exploit this phenomenon for maximum effect.
This is important, because it means that the service is independent of income. I don't need income to drive on the highway. I don't need income to have secure healthcare. Some services are important enough to be socialised, so that the service is open to everyone, irrespective of their income, wealth, or lack of.
Don't need gas?
> Some services are important enough to be socialised, so that the service is open to everyone, irrespective of their income, wealth, or lack of.
And they continue to operate so long as there are enough people who _actually pay for these services_. Maybe you don't fall into that category, fine. But there are a lot of people who do, and it all comes straight out their paycheck. It is not free for them by any stretch of the imagination.
More importantly, according to your definition, nothing is ever free. If I tell you that you can pick a fruit from a tree in a national park, you will probably use a ridiculous argument that national parks are protected, therefore somebody pays for the maintenance, etc.
So no offense, but please don't be an idiot, and by that I mean "someone who acts in a self-defeating or significant counterproductive way."
If a French employer tells you they'll pay you 100k€ annually (just for the sake of the example), you can expect to receive 75k€. (25%, mostly for your retirement plan, social security and unemployment insurance. Mandatory)
Then, if you input those 75k in this tool, it will tell you what you can expect to pay as income taxes. In the case of 75k, 17 218€.
And I am happy to be leaving soon for job in London paying 85 kGBP gross.
65 k€ = 3358 € per months (on "12 mois") after all taxes, if single living alone.
85 k£ = 4712 £ per month, after all taxes.
Also, 65 k€ is a fairly good end of career in France whereas 85 k£ is a good middle experience in London (and you can get bonus, pension and perks on top).
That said, if you're thinking of dropping £1500 on a 1 bed you'll have no problem IMO. I was paying £1400 for a 2 bedroom with garden and huge living room in Leytonstone only a few months back. As long as you're not planning on living in Mayfair or Kensington that's a nice budget to work with.
Looking at what StackOverflow's Jobs tab spits out right now, I see: software engineer Java 38k-60k; software engineer Python 40k-55k; DevOps engineer (not your idea, I guess? there's a number of these) 40k-55k; developer for 3D applications 38k-48k; ...
Then there is one for a senior Java engineer for 47k-59k and right above another one for a senior Java engineer for 60k-120k.
These numbers are gross. Based on other posts, deduct 35-40% to account for things taken out of your paycheck (including health care) plus the income tax and rental tax you have to pay after. Rent for a small apartment in Paris starts about 1000 Euros per month and rises steeply.
My 35-40% figure includes the income tax and the rental tax. You must be in a crazy high bracket if you get 38% deducted every month. On my last pay slip, it's 17.5%, but I get paid around the lower end of the salary brackets I posted above.
> VAT is 22% on most products.
20%
> Gas is expensive (highways too!!!).
Maybe. I prefer spending my money on better things than a car.
I'm in US right now, 1 semester left for degree and have interned at a respectable company. I wonder if they're looking for experienced engineers over fresh ones.
I've read so much that work life and culture is so much better in France, so heres hoping...
Yes and no. There's certainly room for a healthy work-life balance, but don't believe that you're guaranteed to get an interesting job AND great work-life balance. You can find it, but it's not 100% of the market.
Admittedly, this was on Reddit, which is just a huge echo chamber, which led me to stop using it.
However, I wonder how your point of view on this subject is?
A lot of people I know over time build mental walls that resemble what the US culture respects and pushes on everyone. Work is #1 and money is everything. I see people that never use their vacation days and feel bad when they do!
I believe if there was more focus on philosophy teachings in the US, things would be different and maybe more healthy individuals would exist. I think it's easier in the US to fall into a unhealthy pattern of life and not realize it. Some people are dumb founded by the notion or just don't think about it as they don't see alternative options available. I've had luck of working with many older engineers that advise if they had done things differently in life...
Yes. This is how I feel when reading those comments as well. I am from Europe, but living in the US at the moment, but will be moving back soon again. Obviously, people who never experienced an alternative cannot really see how what they have now might be bad.
Having been in both Europe and the US I can easily compare both lifestyles and conclude that Europe is more suited for me, even if it means that I will not own a 5 bedroom house with 6 TVs.
In Europe we both get a month off every year by law, which means we can both enjoy it. My salary is lower, but hers is higher. In general, we find we have more fun this way.
Your idea of jobs in the US is wrong. I work 40 hrs a week and sometimes that goes up to 45 or 50 but not often. I get breakfast and lunch provided to me (also dinner but I don't stay for it because I would go insane) and I make 150k + 80k a year in equity. You could also however work at amazon and get paid the same but also work 60 hours a week (Amazon is the exception and has a very bad reputation).
> health care through Employer is so much better than through government
Health care through the employer can be significantly better than through the government. It can also be worse.
If you are a high performer in the US, it is perfect.
There is a lot of variance between teams.
And why do you think that getting insurance through the employer is better than government? Maybe it is only great for people who know they won't get laid off. In Europe if you get laid off you are still insured. If you are working and wish to have better insurance, you can always go with a private insurance company. I am just not fond of the idea that basic social services are tied to your employment status, since getting laid off could put you in a negative cycle.
The human right to healthcare is already catered for in the UK, through the NHS, so private healthcare doesn't have to accommodate the right, it's simply a business.
You have the official national healthcare that you're forced to pay "la securite sociale" and a wide range of private healthcare that you're forced to pay as well "une mutuelle".
You're not actually forced to pay them, are you?
Noawadays, it's even picked and forced by your employer (but taken on your pay). You may not be able choose or deny the plan you're offered. It's messy.
If interested, I would suggest doing your research quickly since the program has been watered down on the US side and I would expect some tit for tat as time goes on.
// edit: ah, not to forget about their unwillingness to treat you as human being when not speaking their language.
Add:
- the absurd administration burden to do anything
- the absurd prices of anything in Paris
- the lack of consideration for anything that is not in Paris
- the denial of your rights because there might be some terrorists
No way, no reviens Leon.
France is very Paris-centric, especially in terms of the service industry.
Sure, Buffalo exists, but would you start a startup there?
Paris has maybe 10% of the tech scene of London.
Lyon (2nd city of France) has maybe 10% of the tech scene of Paris.
https://yro.slashdot.org/story/16/03/03/235220/french-bill-c...
Edit: Don't need to remind you that other countries, too, have discussed or even introduced fairly ridiculous legislation (crypto wars, DMCA, ...)
[1] http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/14/amendements/3515/AN/90....
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law
> M. Pierre Lellouche ... told the National Assembly. “They deliberately use the argument of public freedoms to make money knowing full well that the encryption used to[sic] drug traffickers, to serious [criminals] and especially to terrorists. It is unacceptable that the state loses any control over encryption..."
And whether or not it is supposed to "only apply to terrorism acts", there's no cryptographic algorithm that has a case for "secure unless the government is investigating an act of terrorism".
The point is that French law requires applications to be designed in such a way that key disclosure will allow customer data to be extracted. Signal, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Apple iMessage, and other end-to-end apps would be illegal.
Snowden: "The UK has just legalised the most extreme surveillance in the history of western democracy. It goes further than many autocracies."