I live and work in France and I am well versed in this type of Visa. It's a very nice arrangement, but it's still France. It's still dealing with the same administrative burdens for everything else. You don't get treated special, you just have a special deal. I've said before that if France wants to attract foreign talent what they need to do is assign someone in the French administration to help workers get established. That is the hard part about coming to work in France. If you've dealt with the DMV in the US, imagine that for everything. You can't just walk into a bank and open an account. You can make an appointment for next week...which is your first consultation. You'll need to bring a long of documentation for your second appointment the week after. You won't get your bank card for awhile, and by the way you'll have to activate it before you can use it. That might take a week. You'll need to go to Paris for a medical check that you can do your job. All French employees must do this. And you have to do it every two years. Pee in a cup. Undress over there. You'll need to go to the prefecture to get your residence permit. It took me 5 months to get my initial appointment and a total of 9 months to get my card, even though the "long term visa" in your passport is only good for 3 months. Some people I know waited 2.5 years for their residence card, another over a year. More? The French healthcare system is pretty good, but you won't get on it until after several trips to the Social Security office. Whoops, your entire file was sent back to you because they needed some additional piece of documentation they didn't tell you about. Make another appointment. Repeat. Repeat. Drivers license? If you are 1 of 14 states you can exhcange easily, but you only have 1 year to do that, after which you have to go to driving school. 3000 euros. Better learn French to pass the test. Better learn French to navigate all the adminstration. So Year 1 you will not be productive. You will be running around trying to stay legally. For an entire year. Ask me how I know.
I am French and I went through the process of immigrating to both the UK and the US. While I agree that France is particularly painful about burocracy, what you describe is not a breeze elsewhere either.
You have to compare with other systems, cause I don't know of any immigrants who can say "oh coming here was so easy".
That is unless you're sent by a big company who takes care of everything.
I can speak about Netherlands. The process is super easy and super smooth.
* I got my residence permit on 3rd day of arriving to country
* I opened bank account on 4th day
* I've opened my insurance by just going online and not talking to people at all
Dutch system is performing very well on bringing tech talent. There's this "Expat Center" that handles whole stuff. In addition to that our company (Booking.com) makes your move even smoother by assisting your relocation and by providing you temporary stay until you find your dreamy apartment.
Please be welcomed at Booking.com in Amsterdam headquarters!
This is how it should be done. Sounds like both the government and your company are doing it right and it's paying off because your are doing well recruiting talent. This is what France should do. But I do feel like there is some odd satisfaction in France both among the French and expats of having paid their dues, made it through the process and are sort of proud of it. Almost like they don;t want to make it too easy.
I can speak for Ireland. I am from a south asian country and the who process in Ireland has been a breeze.
Visa and permit? Easy. Just go to the office, present the documents and everything comes in post two weeks later.
Register with social welfare? great. Just go there and they set you up. You get a card and setup the account online. Everything else take care of by the employer and revenue departments.
Driving license? Take the written test and 300 euros for the lessons. If you pass, you can drive (with a driver with full license). Take the test 6 months later for full license.
Yes, here and there you do meet someone who tries to give you a hard time. but all in all, a very positive experience.
Migrating to Switzerland was a breeze. Everything was set in under a week. Founding a LTD was also easy. In France it took months to get everything solved for immigration (as a EU citizen). I am still struggling to solve those various puzzle pieces for founding a company. The kafkaesque RSI alone requires more time and effort then all the bureaucry in Switzerland together.
I agree that other countries are difficult, too. France moreso I think, but not alone in all of this. Which is why I'm arguing the difficulty in working in or starting a company in France is not money, it's navigating all the administration you need to do. And you won't know all there is to do until you do it. And since the laws change periodically, not even the prefecture will always know. I had immigration lawyers get the prefecture to correct the residency card they were issuing for me because they did it under a different program. How are you to know if the administration is doing it all correctly? And how do you know what all there is to do? And it is all in French. You better learn French or bring a translator. That's what I did.
And we haven't even mentioned income tax. As a US citizen you still have tax liability for income you make in France, meaning you still pay the US a decent amount of taxes you make in France. The US is one of the only countries that does this. So you'll need to hire an accountant familiar with this to do your US taxes, and you still have to pay your French taxes.
And forming a business? Better find someone who knows what to do, and be prepared for it took take a long time, like a year. Small businesses aren't too bad, but if you want employees...that's a totally different story.
Solve the above problems I listed and then France will be attractive to foreigners. Maybe there's a business idea: help companies and people navigate French administration. It's worth a ton of headache.
Your US taxes should be close to nothing, and filling your french taxes can be done in anything from 2 minutes to a couple hours, depending on how large/complicated your savings are. The only burden there is is with the US asking you to fill in taxes when there's nothing to pay.
I agree that coming without planning to learn a bit of french might be a burden.
Actually paying French income tax is pretty easy; it's paying US taxes if you are a US citizen working in France that's hard. I'm not sure Americans know that they are taxed on their income wherever they earn it. All other countries only tax your income that you earn in that country. French citizens don't pay income tax on their salary they earn in the US, but the reverse is not true. Not only do Americans have to pay French income tax, they have to pay US income tax, even if they earn all their salary in France and stayed in France the entire year. And it gets complicated how to calculate, which is why I pay HR Block $700 to do it for me.
You're right about the US being one of the few countries in the world that still tax citizens and permanent residents no matter where they are in the world. You are also correct you should get some tax accounting advice to file your US taxes[]. Having said that, the US provides two mechanisms to offset US taxes when you are living abroad:
1) For single income earners, the first ~$100K is exempt or "non-reportable", known as the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion[1].
2) US tax treaties with other countries help to offset. Thus, if a US citizen/resident pays a lot of taxes in another country that would exceed or equal their amount in the US, provided the country has a reciprocal tax treaty, the person should not need to pay additional tax to the IRS[2].
Note that while this applies to US permanent residents too, there are immigration consequences if one lives abroad without the appropriate paperwork/authorization.[]
[*] Disclaimer: I'm neither a lawyer nor an accountant. Please consult at least the latter for your taxes.
I'm a bit annoyed about this. European forms always ask about the US, even if there's no reason to suspect I've ever been a US citizen - I assume this is purely because America has the pull?
It is true that US citizens must file their yearly US tax return, no matter where they live. That is different from the majority of other countries that do not require this from their citizens living abroad.
In practice, double taxation - which your comment seem to imply - is not really an issue. A lot of countries - including France - have mutual agreements with the US that exempt foreign income (up to a certain amount) from being taxed twice.
Under many circumstances, you can also receive a credit for taxes paid to another country, which ensures you pay max(local tax, US tax). I can't imagine French taxes are lower than the US, so...you end up paying nothing.
Moving to the US was easier than navigating the French administration as a French citizen.
I was able to open a bank account on day 2, without an ID. Obtaining the ID required a trip to the DMV, which while time-consuming, wasn't an especially complex endeavour.
Only issue I ran into was the government shutdown, and that affected everyone.
I don't know how you did it. Every bank I went to asked me for 2 official ID documents (which I didn't have).
Getting a social security number was not particularly hard
Having no credit history was a pain in the ass.
DMV was annoying.
That my wife could not work on my visa was a problem.
The green card process was long and painful. Showing your genitals to a doctor to get a residency card was an unexpected and unpleasant part of the process.
I believe opening a bank account has different requirements in different states. In NYC I only had to show my French passport, work visa, and full-time local work contract. The process seemed designed to allow even unlawful immigrants to get access to banking. In particular I believe the IVR had different decision trees in English and Spanish. Interesting.
edit: I agree having no credit history was a major PITA.
I did it in 2013, with a C&T visa and a very weak grasp of the language. It took about 40 hours (mostly standing in various lines) to get my residence card. Some bureaucrats fucked with me because they could, and some were helpful but still followed their own version of the rules. For example, one day photocopies of bills were acceptable for proof of address (but something else was not acceptable) and the very next day, only the original bill would be accepted.
My daughter is fluent in French and she went with me to the prefecture once. She told me that the woman behind the glass was super rude, even though she put on a smile and pretended to be helpful. In fact, the next time I made it through the line there and explained what documents I had and why, the guy went to that woman's counter and chewed her out for being malicious (she had written a partial list of required docs instead of handing me the official complete-ish pre-printed list), and apologized to me for her behavior. Then he rejected my paperwork for a reason that was not documented anywhere.
Catch-22s are everywhere; you can't open a bank account without proof of address, but you can't rent a place without a local bank account. It's the same for just about everything important. We had some French friends who cosigned for our apartment so we could get past that, and we were VERY fortunate to have friends who were willing to do that for us. A few people told me that everyone knows someone who can make fake paperwork; you just can't follow all the rules. C'est impossible!
However, I would say that living in France was a fantastic experience, and I wish I had done it 10 years earlier.
For the proof of residence, an option nowadays is to book a place long term on airbnb, say 6 months or more, and then put the utilities in your name. Even just one utility may be enough, like water or electricity, maybe even internet too. Then you can use the utility bill as proof of address without needing to sign a formal rental agreement. Note that most governmental places will not accept an AirBnB receipt as proof of address, but a bank might. Keep bills of everything. Always have copies of everything on hand (passports, work contract, birth certificates, visas, bills) and keep electronic copies that you can print off any time.
for longer than 30 days there are hundreds of real state places that find much better place for half the airbnb price. absolutely everyone will speak fluent English (differently from airbnb).
The big advantage is avoiding the catch 22 the above poster experienced. With AirBnB you can get a place without having a French bank account, which requires a French address. And you can book a place in the future before you arrive in France which is important for some visas that require you have housing established before you go.
Note that immigration inside the EU is way easier than with other countries.
You don't need a visa, working permit, special bank account (for US citizens, since the bank must report income, etc, to the US gov), your driving license is valid, etc.
You change languages, currency, you need new bank accounts, new health insurance, completely different educational system. All administrations are different. The culture is also a shock. You will never find any of the grocery or shop you used to buy.
A French going to the UK is not much different than a Mexican going to the USA.
The only advantage is that you don't risk being deported by the police if they don't like you papers. You are effectively allowed to be there by the virtue of being European.
What's it with the bank accounts? You can transfer money within the EU without any problems. I pay my rent in Spain from a German bank account. Though, getting wired internet is another thing, these companies seem to ignore European law.
That's a huge advantage tho, especially if you don't already have a job offer at hand. In fact if you're not in a well paid/in-demand profession like software dev it is almost impossible to immigrate legally from outside the EU.
Not true for France. It might be easier for an EU citizen, but it is still a big waste of time. Getting a bank account still takes at least 3 visits. To hold a working card in your hand will take more then a month. Your driving licence is valid only for a year. And the Social Security nightmare is pretty much the same for everybody. And for the etc. prepare for that every bit will be a hassle.
And the parent is mistaking, he's probably American.
You cannot use a bank accounts well across EU country. Banks are a very localized service, they provide specific account number formats and payment methods by country. It will be a huge hassle day to day when you want a SEPA transfer and the guy expects a RIB or a sort code.
It's worse with UK and Switzerland because they have a different currency. You really need a local bank account or you get bankrupted by the fees and the exchange rate. Incidentally they are the only places where there are the big tech and finance companies to work for.
Most banks are national. There are very few banks that have an international presence, with decent service at the offices.
The last time I went to a French bank in a different region than where I opened the account, they told me they can't do anything and I have to go to my "home" agency.
I have UK and French accounts with the same bank. Both work fine for making payments in other EU countries. I can transfer money between them whenever I want (or spot a better exchange rate).
Using an Austrian bank account in Germany was basically indesitnguishsble from using a German bank account. Nevertheless opening a German bank account was trivial.
And all bank transfers within the EU (not sure if the U.K. is a special case) are free of charge, and IBAN/BIC used everywhere. I routinely transfer money between my Austrian and German accounts.
I moved to the UK (from Ireland). It was relatively painless. No visas, no registration as a foreign worker, just show up and tell the JobCenter you need a National Insurance Number (which took almost a month from the first phone call to getting a cancallation, to getting the number in the post).
Getting a bank account was tricky though, most banks wanted a proof of address on a utility bill, but I couldn't sign up to sky/etc without a bank account. In the end, HSBC gave me an account with my passport as proof of who I said I was. Other than that, it was as difficult as moving city. Obviously not everyone has it this easy.
> I moved to the UK (from Ireland). It was relatively painless.
That's because both are EU countries (for now at least). Moving to France will also be much easier if you're an EU citizen, you won't have to deal with residence permits and your driver's license will also be valid.
You don't have to deal with residence permits but you will have to get a residence card, because without you will have lots of problems. Your driving licence is valid for one year, after that you have to convert your licence. Depending on what classes you have this will require medical tests and additional examinations.
It took me a month to get my NIN, which would have meant I wouldn't have been paid, and would have been unable to pay rent. (First job out of University).
None of the banks I spoke to (TSB, Santander, nationwide, RBS) would accept a letter from my employer
It was a nightmare for my partner and I as well. We lived together in Germany for 3 years with no problems (We are Australian), but moving to Lyon nearly broke me.
I won't go in to details (unless someone asks) but one thing that I want to share is a great option for expats needing a French bank account quickly. It's called Compte Nickel: a fairly new (at the time) startup that is essentially a small bank-like system which requires only a French mailing address, a passport, €20, and a visit to a participating newsagent.
That gets you a bank account with the required RIB so you can get your salary paid, use ATMs, make online payments, and the like. It comes with a Mastercard debit card which the newsagent hands you upon setup in-store. The account has some limits on transactions to prevent laundering but nothing we found a hindrance. It costs €20 a year. If anyone is having issues getting a French bank account just so they can get on their feet, it will be of use to you:
We've since moved back to Germany, which was a huge relief. Being able to just email the local immigration office to give some info or agree on an appointment time... unthinkable in France.
I'm interested in hearing more because my Year 1 in France was very stressful and I am curious to know if it was for other people. And perhaps some poor soul reading this will know how to avoid some pain.
Aside from the banking tip above, I am not sure I have any other tips for avoiding stress on arrival in France aside from simply "don't go".
As a same-sex couple who aren't married we also have some challenges most couples won't face. France, like the USA, does not recognise civil unions or anything other than a marriage when it comes to immigration. You're either married or single in their view. While for the USA, I remember we simply could not migrate there as a couple, the French at least acknowledged our situation and said I could have a visitor's visa and then get married once settled there with my visitor visa validated to become a residence permit (duration: 1 year).
The catch with the visitor visa however is that I had to fund my own health insurance (I found some expat insurance with Allianz which the French consulate said was acceptable) and also had to swear in a written statement that I would not seek gainful employment in France. It's hardly ideal.
My partner is a scientist, and because he was offered a research position at Lyon's university, he was given an expedited residence permit process. He went to OFII (immigration office) to confirm his residence permit about 3 weeks upon arrival in the country, and was exempted from all medical checks. His health insurance was provided using the French social security system. That last part took a while, but otherwise for him it was smooth as butter. I don't see why France couldn't apply this system to promising tech talent from abroad.
Now, for me the immigration process on arrival meant waiting 3 months for a letter from OFII for an appointment, which I couldn't make. That meant another 3 month wait, followed by medical checks including an X-ray, a talking-down-to by some immigration officials surprised that I hadn't learnt much of the language, and then a stamp on my visa. Now both residents, we could have applied for marriage at this stage, but we actually left for Germany just 2 weeks later - in France there is a one month cool-down period between marriage application and ceremony, so the timing wasn't possible. In any case, I would rather have a real wedding back home when it's finally legalised, rather than over here in Europe. No-one could really come...
Before I discovered Compte Nickel we had a hell of a time trying to get a bank account. We had an "attestation" from the university's housing board that we had an apartment reserved for us, but the bank first told us it was older than 3 months so no longer valid. Upon getting a new one the bank then said an attestation wasn't good enough anyway and we needed a rental contract to open an account.
We were staying in an AirBnB for our first month in Lyon and while the first two weeks looking around were pleasant enough, trying to organise long term accommodation and a way to get paid was super stressful. The university accommodation ended up being woefully inadequate so we cancelled that before we set foot in the place. Thanks to Compte Nickel and my partner's willingness to just pay a real estate company to find us an apartment, we got things sorted with mere days to spare before the AirBnB time was up, and things would have really gone haywire.
In France we made friends with a Finnish couple, an American couple, and a Finnish/French couple. 2/3 were also academics, and as married couples would have had much smoother immigration processes than ours. Despite this, all three planned to leave shortly after we did. None of us really liked it there. Lyon's suburbs are particularly filthy but even if I was in a smaller, prettier town I can't imagine being able to last very long.
Disclaimer : I might be biased : I am currently waiting for my H1B to process in order to move to San Francisco.
I have worked in France for most of my career so far. My first hand experience is of course limited (I only have 5 years of experience) but I really feel that the FrenchTech is overblown. There are some great startups but they are extremely rare.
We have started hiring non french people in the startup I work for one year ago and the culture clash is tremendous. Things that have bothered me for a while are doubly strange for them :
- Everything takes a LOT of time and nobody prioritizes making the process more efficient. There are many bottlenecks.. after discussing with colleagues in non French companies, they have all found solutions in order to solve them. Here there is no will to do so. So it can take weeks to merge simple changes.
- very large aversion to new technology. Pretty much constantly lagging 1 to 2 years behind the rest of the community.
-LOTS of office politics
I don't expect any of these to become perfect in another country but I am more than ready for a change of air.
Nah, I mean practical libraries that would actually help our codebase..
In my stack (Android) : started adopting EventBus while Rx was already pretty mature, deep into spaghetti code architecture while it has already been showed that variations around MVP or MVVM would be very beneficial.
I can't go into too much detail here but when there are some very big challenges around this product which faces an enormous memory usage and tons of memory leaks.
I am very practical and don't feel the need to use all the latest toys but here these are cases where the product could have been greatly improved by being a part of the community instead of living in an ivory tower where you are absolutely distrustful of external code to a ridiculous degree.
> If you've dealt with the DMV in the US, imagine that for everything. You can't just walk into a bank and open an account
I know the DMV is the ultimate symbol, to a lot of Americans, of the ultimate administrative clutter. But trust me, if any 'public services' of France could run with just half the throughput and efficiency of the DMV, people would be more than happy with that :P
-> For the ultimate kafkaesque experience, just try get a car registration outside of Paris intra-murros, say, Neuf-Trois. You'll discover an alternative universe and might realize that hey, the DMV is awesome!
You'll need to go to Paris for a medical check that you can do your job. All French employees must do this. And you have to do it every two years. Pee in a cup. Undress over there.
Yep the "visite médicale d'embauche" shocks a lot of foreigners... It was suppressed in January [0] for white collar workers but in risky jobs it's still mandatory.
Although as mentioned before the pee-in-a-cup part is optional, it saved a friend's ass. That allowed for detection that something was wrong, which prompted him to do more tests, and resulted in a diagnosis of a severe white-cell blood problem. Save for this check he'd be dead by now.
It may seem mundane when everything's OK, but thanks to this check many people discover they have diabetes, kidney issues, hearing or sight issues (both are tested at regular intervals) and can then take proactive actions to fix that, usually suggested during the last part which is the debrief with a doctor†. Similarly, that chat may look useless to healthy people but sometimes it help uncover psychopathological situations such as nascent burnout or depression.
Seriously, what's there to be so up in arms about it? It's all handled confidentially like every medical checkup, the employer can't see anything of it except a mention saying you're medically able or not able to do your job, it helps prevent drunkards driving school buses, and it may save or at the very least improve your life.
† Caveat: Some doctors do really suck and could care less. Sadly happens, but not all of them are bad.
I work for a major French engineering company, and have done so in France - I don't know what job OP has, but my company does NOT make you do this.
Also worth noting that I've had to do this in other countries; I'd say it's more problematic elsewhere.
I would however say that yes, the French bureaucracy is something else entirely. But if you are friendly to them and show your face things will happen faster.
I work in tech in France and in my personal experience, this is fake. You do have to get a medical exam upon employment but that's it. You'll have to get your shirt off for a heart exam. But it doesn't have to be in Paris, no peeing in a cup, and you won't have to do it every 2 years.
There's a medical check but you don't have to pee in a cup (they propose you a urine test but it's optional) and you don't have to undress either, mostly chat with a doctor and pass an eye exam.
And it's only in Paris if you're in Paris, otherwise you'll do it wherever you live.
I don't really see what's shocking, it's just to make sure you're medically apt to do the job your employer is asking you to, and that your employer provides the right environment to work in a way that's safe for you.
For tech jobs it boils down mostly to workspace ergonomics, and a sane work schedule.
Just to add one more point, on the website it says:
"Dependent children under the age of 18 do NOT need a residence permit. However, an underage child travel document (‘document de circulation pour étranger mineur’ – DCEM) must be obtained at your local Préfecture after your arrival in France."
In my prefecture we have been trying to get a DCEM for each child for 1 year. The prefecture is not doing them at all, and they do not know when they will again. And the prefecture says the children cannot re-enter France without them. Our immigration lawyer says "as a practical matter" border control will allow the kids back in if you fly into France (but maybe not another EU country).
The residency for kids is a pretty good deal, but you just may not actually be able to get it (maybe in another year?).
But I actually do really like France. I want to stay here awhile. I've done everything above board, legally, legitimately. The people are really great, not like the stereotypes. It's worth all the hassle I believe, but I think people need to be aware of the reality of the difficulty of the process that France is advertising in trying to attract foreign tech workers.
1. That's not necessarily easy for people coming from outside the Eurozone.
2. For people from inside the Eurozone, it might still not work: I've had a work contract in a Eurozone country that specified that I had to have a bank account in that country. Not sure why, not sure whether it's legal, but not necessarily something you want to fight.
3. In France, it would not work as a practical matter. In other countries, you give people your IBAN in an email and you're set; in France, they require you to give them something called a RIB, which is a piece of paper (or a PDF) issued by your bank carrying your IBAN. Foreign banks do not issue things that would be accepted as a RIB in France, so your employer would say they can't transfer your money. Stupid? Yes! Everyday reality in France? Also yes, sadly.
A few years ago, my bank did not issue RIB online and I only had one left but needed two of them. So I just fired up LaTeX and did my own, correctly formated according to my IBAN and BIC number. It was perfectly fine and I used this files until I left my bank.
The main problem living in france with a foreign account is that most companies (such as phone and energy companies) does not accept foreign account for SEPA debit mandate (IBAN starting with anything else than FR).
It is a major problem for the development of european fintechs development in france, such as N26 german fintech.
US citizens should note that US Federal law requires you to file a statement of your overseas accounts every year, and your foreign bank must report your assets to the US government. There are steep fines if the foreign bank does not comply. This puts a burden and risk on many banks so they sometimes refuse to let Americans open bank accounts with them. And even when they do open an account for you, expect to provide a lot of official documentation (passports, social security number). Just another benefit of being from the land of the free.
I've seen some pretty technical things done by some french developers, so for sure they have the talent. Why there are no noticeable companies coming out of France then? I just think the same, they are killing it with bureaucracy.
It looks great on paper but the devil will be in the detail and how well they execute on the admin/bureaucracy side.
If my experience a few years ago with the auto entrepreneur scheme and URSAFF are anything to go by, you'll need a lot of patience, the ability to speak half decent French and a sense of humour if you want to avoid ripping all your hair out :)
I love France (have even married one of their citizens!) but this is a country where in 2013 we moved from one department to another and had to close our bank accounts with the branches in the first department and open new ones in the second department because there was no way to migrate accounts between branches of the same bank o_O We literally had to post cheques to a friend in the old department so he could deposit them while we waited for the old accounts to be closed and new ones opened (complete with different cards, chequebooks, account numbers - the works).
Why did we need to migrate accounts? Because you could only deposit cheques in the same department as your local branch. Why were we depositing cheques?! Because half of France (including my fiancées' employer at the time) still uses them for everything (which is also great fun if you're in a rush in Super-U and the person in front decides to pay with one).
Having said all of that, France is awesome despite its flaws and there are lots of reasons to be hopeful with Macron now piloting the ship.
After having lived and worked in multiple EU countries, I'm convinced that language is the single biggest barrier to true freedom of movement of workers in the EU. In Germany, for example, you cannot assume any daily task can be accomplished without the German language. You're then faced with either constantly dealing with communication problems with everything in your life, or paying the significant opportunity cost of learning a new language -- which you will likely never learn to high enough degree to fluently use in business, and which won't help you in the next country in which you live.
What is needed is a joint common language (English) that everyone in the EU learns starting in kindergarten and in which you're guaranteed state services in every member state. But there is no chance the French and German speakers would ever agree to that, it is like a religious issue.
Great! I propose Spanish, being the second most spoken language by number of native speakers (behind Chinese), and given the relevance of Spain through history in Europe.
(this comment was only half joking. It's easy to impose a global language when it's yours, but you see, it's a different story when you need to learn a different one).
Although, if we're realistically considering the present situation, the number of people who already speak English as either a native or non-native language are roughly even with the number that speak Mandarin, and far exceed that number for Spanish-speakers. Only looking at Europe, this still holds. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total_num...
I'm currently somewhat fluent in 3 europeans languages and will soon attend a month long intensive course to beef up my 4th(french).
Yes it's a bother but it's also the charm of Europe.
"Now" is an overstatement. That proposal was still not debated in parliament (it was officially proposed by the states in 2011 and 2014) and is not close to becoming a law. Until then, no English court cases.
Scandinavia is already part where there. Almost everyone in Denmark, Sweden and Norway speaks English at least decently well. I don't know about Sweden and Norway, but at least in Denmark there is a lot of things that you can get in English as well. But it would probably still be somewhat tricky.
You'll take my own language from my cold, dying hands. I'm sure most Europeans feel the same. I'm not going to go around speaking fucking English. That will never ever happen.
No one is going to do that. But having every government (and everything else mandatory) service available in a common language, regardless of country would be fantastic. Push the burden of language on the entities which can afford to absorb the cost best.
It won't and it shouldn't. The French will never, ever agree to anything that officially places their language on a lower level. They might accept de-facto lingua franca status for English, but they'll never sign anything that mandates it or recognises it. Discussing language is a recipe for pointless strife; the next step really should be taxation standards.
This said, the market is adjusting on its own. EU customers are voting with their wallets, and the more they move around, the more English-speaking cross-border businesses flourish.
France doesn't even recognize any other language than French within France, as far as I know. They have no minority languages, even though they have, and used to have, minorities.
> France doesn't even recognize any other language than French within France
Officially, France (and the Academy) only barely recognize the existence of French spoken in their former colonies, and even then only when it's convenient (to maximize the count of the number of French speakers). They go out of their way to try to "preserve" the French that is spoken by white French people in France itself as the only official version of French, so they sure as heck aren't going to recognize other languages spoken in France by minorities other than French.
My grandparents speak Breton too, though not with me. As children, they used to have their fingers smacked if they happened to say a word in Breton. Back then, the French of the Republic, one and indivisible, was to be heard in all schools and those who dared challenge this policy were humiliated with having to wear a clog around their necks or kneel down on a ruler under a sign that read: "It is forbidden to spit on the ground and speak Breton".[13] That's the reason why some older folks won't transmit the language to their children: it brings trouble upon yourself...
I don't want this discussion to turn something it shouldn't be. I'm talking about other European natives here, such as the Basques or Bretons, for example. So no colonies involved or other tricky subjects.
Personally, I've moved two times and I didn't have to do the close/open/cheque stuff. And the direct debit authorization I've since before the first move keep working.
As for cheques, It's very rarely used, I still use the first chequebook I was given when I opened my bank account more than 10 years ago. I've never experienced the "pay by cheque" at the super market since I was a child. Cheques are used in very few situations, the last I encountered was for the "solde de tout compte" when I left my previous job.
I don't live in France anymore and don't have the accounts but they were big banks: Credit Agricole and Caisse D'Epargne. I've heard similar stories with Banque Populaire too.
As for cheque usage, 4 years ago (when I was there) loads of people were still using them (young and old). This is in central and south France (no idea about Paris, never lived there).
At least 20% of French people express capitalism-hostile opinions (and it goes well beyond Mélenchon voters). You face hostility as soon as you make money, with consequences ranging from being denied places in the kindergarten to the "petit Gregory" affair where the 5 years old son of a newly promoted team leader was drowned. I'm trying to show off as much as I can that I'm sponsoring poverty, donating a lot, making a lot for minorities, etc, because truth is, I'm afraid of getting mugged. People who criticize me, talking as if I belonged to the group of tax evaders, themselves don't have a clean business and evade taxes just as much as Greek citizen, so don't expect any rationality in their despicable criticism. Things can be so simple as, if you don't buy locally-grown groceries, you deserve to be told off in public for not helping the local population.
If you belong to the Christian minority, expect to be harassed by those you say "We need to respect all religions". Everyday you'll face jokes like "priests rape kids, followers are stuck-up, donating is worse than sponsoring a mafia".
President Macron himself is seen as a capitalist enemy by those 20-50%, and this Mélenchon group explicitly denies his legitimacy. There are currently very active groups and many of my friends are preparing the ground on Facebook (God knows what kind of riots they're preparing for September – you think I'm kidding? wait and watch).
French people are entirely hostile to privately-owned companies and average-wealthy managers, so, no, I wouldn't recommend my country for entrepreneurs, not until they make peace with a reasonable dose of capitslism. And that's where I have hope for Macron: If he does the right things, he may tame anti-capitalism sentiments a bit and show that hard works does bring money.
Two of my kids are in lycee (high school) and some of the things they teach there are surprising. I can't speak for what you experienced, but I can say that what they teach in the lycee is not too far off of what you you wrote. Yet the government wants to recruit tech talent. Hmmm. However, most French people I know are not anti-capitalist. It might be more of an issue with the younger generation.
> At least 20% of French people express capitalism-hostile opinions.
In other words, 80% don't. I am not quite sure what point you are trying to make and I don't want to interpret your words as a claim that 20% is far too much.
Until we get an implementation of Capitalism that proves its superiority to all other models and demonstrates its ability to regulate itself, it's probably safe to tolerate alternative points of views don't you think? If it provides moderation and balance, I'm not against it personally.
That said, the de-facto, pavlovian hostility you are probably referring to is certainly annoying: and what I mean is that sometimes it is just purely out of doctrine, without a single argument intelligent or not. But hey, you have the same thing at the other end of the spectrum, on the other side of the Atlantic where for example, the words 'socialist' or 'communist' are slurs.
Your reasoning about 20-80 doesn't hold. If, say, 20% people are violent and 80% aren't, does that mean you're 80% safe from violence? Of course not.
It's exactly what we are talking about: Those 'commies' go well beyond oral discussions, they are materially hostile, with the ranges of consequences I explained above.
This is why it's called extremism: They are not tolerant with other points of view.
Anyway. You don't have to understand the problem for that problem to exist. Look at the other comments, there's enough testimonials of the same thing to attest that it exists. It's just that you belong to the group of people who deny it, downplay the problem, or attempt to show 'it's ok because others are doing worse', which doesn't help solving the problem.
The point is, since there is a specific risk for managers/owners of companies, I wouldn't recommend an entrepreneur to choose France. Let France solve its hostility to capitalism first, and see if people are less hostile in 5 years.
> Your reasoning about 20-80 doesn't hold. If, say, 20% people are violent and 80% aren't, does that mean you're 80% safe from violence? Of course not.
You might want to read your initial comment one more time then, my observation was related to your statistic about anti-capitalist 'opinions', but now you seem to have switched to 'violence'. The point I am making is that debating ideas is important and having a constructive critic of capitalism is necessary, that's why I have no problem with your statistic. Unless 20% of the population is ready to take up arms to install the dictatorship of proletariat, but I am sure you know this isn't the case.
> This is why it's called extremism: They are not tolerant with other points of view
Unlike you, who couldn't possibly be suspect of intolerance to other view points as demonstrated by your rhetoric.
> Anyway. You don't have to understand the problem for that problem to exist. Look at the other comments, there's enough testimonials of the same thing to attest that it exists. It's just that you belong to the group of people who deny it, downplay the problem, or attempt to show 'it's ok because others are doing worse', which doesn't help solving the problem.
You realize I quoted one line about statistics, and commented it, don't you?
In case you are curious, and since you have taken the freedom to cluster me in a group already, and seemingly know what my opinion is on your brilliant diagnostic of the problems of France:
Having lived on both sides of the Atlantic, I'm fully aware that certain aspects of France, administrative or cultural, don't exactly make it the perfect place to create a business, that said, I'm not an entrepreneur myself and there are certainly a ton of other positive aspects that should not be overlooked. As for the rest of your depiction of France as the ultimate entrepreneurial hell, it's a bit too excessive to be significant.
> Unless 20% of the population is ready to take up arms to install the dictatorship of proletariat, but I am sure you know this isn't the case.
I really, really haven't witnessed that those 20% are non-violent, much the opposite. They wouldn't install "dictature du proletariat" of course, but mugging moderately-rich people is a recurrent story in France. That's what I'm highlighting when I quote the "Petit Grégory", other stories of physical exclusion and physical violence, including the video of the Air France CEO being mugged by employees, sequestration of management teams until they sign off grants for employees, humiliation of Christian people without grounds... French people, until demonstrated otherwise, are hostile to successful people. Except JJ Goldman, but he's openly Communist-friendly.
You say it's all peaceful discussions, but I witness the violence, verbal to physical. And beyond those 20%, another 30% are happy bystanders, who wouldn't oppose if such a scene happened ("he's rich, he didn't donate to that homeless guy, therefore he had it coming").
Look, HN is not the best place for politics, it's rather a place to arouse one's curiosity. So please take note of the phenomenon I'm bringing to your attention (which is corroborated by 3-4 prople below), and you'll notice the phenomenon in real life if you pay attention.
> I really, really haven't witnessed that those 20% are non-violent, much the opposite. They wouldn't install "dictature du proletariat" of course, but mugging moderately-rich people is a recurrent story in France.
I have to admit I am starting to be confused about the 20% who are 'the opposite of non-violent' really are then. Since we were talking about opinions against capitalism and you made a connection to violence, I felt that you might be referring to certain fringe elements of the left who in fact, and typically during strikes, tend to riot, throw molotov cocktails and bust up some bus stops. But hey, while they are very visible when those things happen, you cannot seriously continue to make it like the 20% we are talking about are those people, it's intellectually dishonest.
Anyhow and with all due respect, there are more than just one problem with your arguments. For example, you seem to explain the motive of a crime that has been committed 30 years ago as vile jealousy and hostility to wealth and success in the French culture. The crime however remains unsolved to this day, the motive is still unknown, in other words, you are just using your own opinion as an argument. The rest of your demonstration is certainly entertaining to read as your tangents cover several populist bullet points with a little bit of virtuosity: the innuendo I think is aimed at immigrants although I am not entirely sure, and then those Greeks who don't pay their taxes, before finishing with locally grown groceries, apparently, but I have to admit you completely lost me here, and I would sincerely love to hear what you meant, it sounds fun.
I'll simply have the elegance to stop it there instead of covering the next 3 paragraphs who are in the same vein, but mostly because I chose to believe you are an intelligent person, and couldn't seriously come with something like this to make your case.
If you are ready for introspection and honestly accept to read your essay with a critical eye, you might observe that while the 4 paragraphs you wrote depict several different problems that you have identified in this country, the blame is always put on something or someone, and that's why France is such a clusterfuck to live in, and not a single time you have something constructive to say. In terms of negativity and exaggeration however, this is an open bar.
So, if you look at things objectively, you might realize that what you actually wrote simply is just: a rant, plain and simple. I think this also explains why you dared labelling me and attributing me thoughts that you suspected I had earlier. It is now very clear to me that you weren't replying to me, you were just sort of iterating your rent since you had apparently convinced yourself that I must be one of those guys of that group. It would be very nice of you to unregister me from that group you have clustered me in. And please just don't persist arguing with me on a discussion we are not having, let alone with such non arguments, having spent the first 30 years of my life in France, you realize my understanding of French capitalism isn't going to change after reading 3 or 4 testimonies in an HN thread.
Let me still contribute to your list of desirable changes that might help make things better in France. I think your essay could be seen as a perfect embodiment of something that might not just be a stereotype, but perhaps a little bit of a reality: a tendency to negatively complain about problems, without being constructive.
This is true. I've spent the past couple of months in various areas of France.
I can't speak for all ages, but the youth are incredibly passionate about politics and many hold strong anti capitalism beliefs and will enthusiastically riot at the chance to have their opinions heard.
It's more anecdote/speculation on my part than fact but I noticed many (most?) families would vote as a block on historic lines. So, if your mother and father were left, everyone in the family would always vote left (regardless of candidate/current manifesto), likewise for right leaning families.
What I love about Macron is his unashamed centerist approach. It's new in France and I hope he has ushered in a new dimension to French politics that sticks and makes it more normal for people to vote for different parties each time based on what a manifesto actually says and who's running for elected office.
Macron reminds me a little of 1997 in the UK and Tony Blair. Let's hope he avoids turning in to a war criminal in a few years time... :)
Yeah there's a lot of left leaning kids being caught in the student unions (unef & co). Those are propped up by the "real world" unions who are in turn very close to the different political parties.
The thing is, those left leaning student bodies are the only ones to have credible presence in most universities due to the amount of support they garner to push their communications and frankly the incompetence of the right leaning student orgs.
It's a bit of a self perpetuating cycle where the right leaning folks don't have as much support structure to coordinate because of how everyone (themselves included) see the right.
I wouldn't worry for your vacations. Here are two recurrent periods of strikes:
- Generally, strikes start in unis and high schools in the far end of September, and, depending on the year, they may develop into fully-grown national riots in public companies (SNCF) then private companies, or if there's no political following, they die off with the October school holidays. This year I'm forecasting a lot of following, because Macron intends to take controversial decisions about employment laws during this summer.
- Flight strikes are rather planned for Christmas holidays (20 Dec-3 Jan). They have internal reasons and are generally not related to the October strike season. So, your September holidays are safe ;)
There's been a call for strikes to protest against the labor code reforms by several syndicates and far left parties (PC, Mélenchon's Insoumis). Expect the usual circus, but I don't think it'll be too bad. There were already some labor reforms under Hollande, and they went through. Now there's an even bigger majority for it. But syndicates and the far left have to go through the motions and protest on this. Get some popcorn, enjoy the show (not too close), you may see a traditional French protest while here. IIRC it should be around mid-September.
If you really want to have some fun go poking around high school and facultés de science humaines.
You'll probably get to witness "the che" flags on faculty buildings and students barricading the ways in. Why? Neither we nor them know.
Hollande's reform clearly didn't have a majority, this one is in the same bag. Most of the people who voted for Macron did it only because of the fear of Le Pen.
Every person here should watch Yuri Bezmenov's lectures on ideological subversion, you can find them on youtube.
The lecture is 30 years old but everything going on today makes sense after hearing him lay things out. The division in society on race, gender, income, etc is by design to keep the plebes at each others throats.
You should google it for more infos. Here is a quote from the man himself:
"If I am elected, France will launch a major initiative beginning this summer targeting the major Internet providers, so that they agree to the legal seizure of data from their encrypted services as part of the fight against terrorism"
Sounds like what a politician would say to get some more votes from the "I'm afraid and have no idea what encryption is" crowd, without actually having to do anything after the election.
That quote is substantially different from being against encryption. I mean, I'm not enthusiastic about his stance, but it's simply not what you're claiming.
You might be right however it's a slippery slope that we and I would hope the informed internet community must give no quarter. It's clear the nation state is an archaic institution that is slowly on it's way out. Naturally we cannot accept the authority of the nation state forever and giving such immense and misplaced power to such an actor (or any actor for that matter) will have seriously dire consequences. The end result will be the same however it may take us 10 or 20 extra, bloody, years to get there.
I'm not convinced hyperbole and statements -- like your original one -- that are substantially misleading are any way for intelligent people to make points.
He has. That being said, he has nominated some semi competent people for tech related things (eg Mounor Mahjoubi as ministre du numérique) so hopefully that was all campaign talk and won't actually get implemented.
The first decision he took as a president is to renew the Etat d'Urgence (which suspends many civil liberties) while having campaigned against the "Etat d'Urgence permanent", which probably doesn't require a translation.
So there is indeed hope that he won't follow his campaign line to the letter.
While I agree in spirit with your point, I cannot help but imagine the shitfest of goal realignment that must follow the first your-eyes-only presidential briefing from the intel agencies.
Not really. There is no more terrorism now than there has been for the past 50 years. We forget it but Europe, and France in particular has been constantly the target of violent terrorist attacks. The OAS for a while, then far left extremists and pro-Palestinian movements, then state-sponsored terrorism (Iran, Libya), the Algerian islamists (FIS), now a broader stream of home grown islamism, and of course all sort of other movements (corsican nationalists, far rights, etc).
I don't see why there would be a need for a Etat d'Urgence now but not in the 70s, 80s, 90s and 2000s...
Plus the scale of casualties of terrorism is dwarfed by common crime for which the state response has been the exact opposite than to terrorism (i.e. to reduce or eliminate jail sentences).
And if this Etat d'Urgence was used solely against terrorism, it could be debatable, but instead it is clearly being used against lots of non-islamist terrorist targets (including preventing people from demonstrating against the previous government labour laws...) so I believe we are in a clean cut abuse of power situation.
More worryingly, Macron's exit from the Etat d'Urgent Permanent strategy involves basically making these exceptional measures permanent by adding them to common law.
(Though you are right about past events) No thanks, I don't think there's an acceptable level of terrorism (as I also don't believe in draconian security measures)
There isn't a morally "acceptable level" of terrorism, rape, assaults, burglaries or pretty much any form of crime. But there is still nevertheless a balance to establish between surveillance/totalitarian state and a tolerance for some level of crime. An absolute zero level of terrorism means that the society is immune to some crazy guy taking the wheel of a lorry to run over people. To get there you need an unprecedented level of controls which I'd rather not even try to picture (and which cost I'd certainly not want to pay for with my taxes).
Well, Crédit Agricole is kind of a special case, at it was initially for farmers and the like (which do not usually move), and has a heavy reliance on local branches. Although I remember my parents having an account there and not having that issue after moving on the other side of the country.
Yeah a recurring theme in this thread seems to be non french people getting caught in our public service vs private(ised) operator spectrum.
As the saying goes "it's not a bug, it's a feature"!
Word of advice from an equally confused native: smile and ask questions. That ought to get you far enough unless you're in Paris (my condolences if you have to deal with the ile de france préfectures or mairies).
A département is not a suburb within a city - it's a large region of France, equivalent to a county in the UK, except with a totally different administrative setup.
That's true, but there is the special case of Paris, which is itself a département and has its suburbs (depending on how strictly you define the term) stretching over three to seven different départements. If you move within the Paris metropolitan area, it's easy to change département even while staying in the suburbs of the same city.
Also, the large regions of France are called "régions" ;-)
I have the Auto Entrpreneur status (even though I'm currently employed). If you understand french, registering to it is a breeze, otherwise you can find help online, I agree that it could be improved though.
You can use an online bank if you think you'll move around a lot. Plus today it has become very easy to switch bank thanks to Loi Macron, and most bank now take charge of everything to attract new customers.
I'm not exactly sure, but i think of the EU countries. Flanders in Belgium would be a better place to start then France.
All developers/people speak: French, English and Dutch.
The only thing is, the taxes are very high. But on the other hand, the health care is awesome and cheap. Flemish people are also known to be hard workers
Anekdote: I'm Flemish, but this is what polls/research of EU-countries also conclude.
The things you hear in the news, is mostly when the Southern part of Belgium is involved ( strikes, political crisis, Brussels-Molenbeek). Due to differences between North and South Belgium ( south = very socialist and even communism since recently, where north is more liberal)
I actually believe the northern part of Belgium has more in common with the Netherlands, than the southern part..
PS. I'll probably be downvoted, but please add your opinion. I know it's very controversial. That doesn't mean i'm wrong. If you think i'm wrong, i'm open for alternative opinions as always.
The Belgian administration is an even bigger mess than France. I have a colleague that had to wait 8 month in Brussles for his residency card, which is required for a ton of stuff (ie. getting a phone number in belgium).
Also in actual Flanders, some people in the administration will only ever talk to you in Dutch, even if they understand English and French.
There is indeed too much administration and official communication with the governement is in Dutch, no disagreement there ( although i think you can change this for businesses). Administration is improving though.
I went through a similar situation myself and had a similar yet more positive experience.
> Why did we need to migrate accounts? Because you could only deposit cheques in the same department as your local branch.
Not true for all banks, national ones (like BNP) always allowed to deposit anywhere, and for most you could mail directly to the account branch (no need to go through a friend). Also, online banks solve this nicely.
> Why were we depositing cheques?! Because half of France (including my fiancées' employer at the time) still uses them for everything (which is also great fun if you're in a rush in Super-U and the person in front decides to pay with one).
"Half" is overemphatic, even for 2013. This is not the case anymore, huge majority now pays via chip and pin cards and waiting in line is not so much of a problem with self-checkout machines.
Startups do well when they improve things for people who vote with their wallets (buying this or that service).
Bureaucracies though are a completely different beast. Better value? Happier customers? They care not a bit. You need different levers to (sloooowly) move them.
Exactly. You can't enter the market and provide better service for "government administration." You could offer a service to help a person, but the person still has to go through it all.
I think one common way is to get a high ranking bureaucrat to mandate the change. It is not a guarantee, but a good enabler. I suspect pride, shame (you still use paper receipts for this?), media or even bribes are used.
For examples, I would look at automating standard government functions (e.g., car registrations, toll collections, etc.). Putting those online leaves some clerks unemployed and is thus often resisted by default, so someone found a working path for each of those
I think competition among countries actually helps. Case in point: this visa program. They are trying to make it more streamlined and more attractive with a longer expiration. It is improvement in the right direction.
Absolutely not. The reason things are like described ( although it's not as bad today), is because many sectors are heavily regulated, and belong to a few actors abusing their monopolistic position. There's a reason the european union gave a 500millions fine to the french bank a decade ago ( but things didn't move a lot).
As an example, all the online banking start ups belong ( or were created as subsidiaries of) big banks. All of them.
I definitely understand you in the banking thing. We found out a lot of their banks aren't actually banks but regional credit unions. Our bank in rive gauche was not the same bank in Picardi or Bordeaux. Getting new cards required us to drive down from Paris to our actual branch in Bordeaux.
We eventually transferred to a large multinational bank. It requires us to keep a lot of funds in their account. But I can deposit a check anywhere in France.
This seems sort of like the kind of visa system the USA would advertise to attract a particular talented group, does it not? The founder visa looks quite friendly and easy, but it's four years. What happens after that? And what if the startup fails, does the founder have to leave France?
I also wonder how appealing these international visa programs will be in light of the changing US immigration and visa system. Will the USA lose out on talent? Will the USA lose on half of the next generation of billion dollar+ startups? Assuming the past trend mentioned in WSJ persists, anyway
"The founder visa looks quite friendly and easy, but it's four years. What happens after that? And what if the startup fails, does the founder have to leave France?"
I think that ambiguity is by design, to attract certain type of demographics for people falling under the employees and founders groups. (i.e. young, unattached, adventurous)
For people falling into the investor group, I seriously doubt getting visa renewed after 4 year will be an issue as long as they are willing to bring in additional capital.
It says right there on the page that it's renewable. Also, if you are in the country legally for four years, and you work and pay taxes, it should be easy to get some other kind of permanent residence permit. After one more year, you can even apply for citizenship.
Here is a country that refused to give me knowledge when i needed it but it's now trying to lure me in.
A decade back i finished my high school in a French speaking country with honors and got an admission in a French university to study Business Administration. I've been refused the entry visa for some imaginary reasons. Unofficially i was part of the group of potential foreign students who may refuse to go back to their home-country after graduation.
I then stayed in my country went to university to get a "useless" B.A. that couldn't help me to face the socio-economic realities of the world.
In 2015 i read a book "Googled" by Ken Auletta that shacked me to the core and pushed me to learn how to code.
I'm now a self taught programmer with skills that will benefit any French Tech startup and products' projects that could create 1000s of jobs in France if i decide to start my companies there.
That said, I would not go to France because it didn't welcome me when i wanted to get in order to acquire knowledge. Now France "needs" me to come and boost their shrinking economy with the tech-knowledge i have acquired elsewhere.
Sorry Monsieur le President, I ain't coming.
It should not be that personal. This a weird way to think of it, France is 20 million times different from the "France" of that person or persons, who decided you do not go there. I was turned down from getting an entry visa to a country when I needed it the most, yet go it later very easily for something that I was not very keen to travel for it. By the way, I went to France last month and loved every minute of it.
Don't let anybody kid you. It's all personal, every bit of business. Every piece of shit every man has to eat every day of his life is personal. They call it business. OK. But it's personal as hell.
-- Mario Puzo
I've been working on relocating to France, and while I'm very excited to do it it's been frustrating to try to get information about this program. People don't seem to know what documentation is required, and replies come after weeks (if ever) from government bodies.
As far as trades/professions are concerned, you need a degree or a certificate of some kind for virtually everything in France (from being a hairdresser all the way up to doctors/lawyers).
That's so fucking backwards. France was, is and will remain a shit place for any serious entrepreneur. Literally no single unicorn founder from the US would have satisfied these old fashioned conservative anti-progression requirements.
It's more nuanced than it seems on the surface. I started with a similar opinion but I have to say there is something to be said for everyone from hairdressers on up actually having some form of relevant qualification. At least for the trades etc. - you end up with much more knowledgeable practitioners.
There are problems though: it leads to very early specialisation (when someone fresh out of school may still not be exactly sure what they want to do) and makes it difficult to hop between different trades/jobs (since you need to re-train in a lot of cases).
You also end up with situations where people drive all day from the UK and back to do some interior decoration/carpentry/whatever over the weekend, because the locals are so expensive that you can pay extremely well for non-French EU professionals and still be better off.
...as well as millions of other non-graduates you never heard of, with good reason. For any random field, it is easy to pick outliers. The question is, what matters more to you - rejecting a few false negatives or a lot more false positives.
That strategy is favored by, and makes sense for Silicon Valley VCs. I could be wrong, but I think France is mostly concerned about creating jobs and advancing its tech industry as a whole rather than chasing unicorns.
Given that we've warned you more than once before, this easily exceeds the threshold for banning you. Please don't post like this again. National/racial/religious/ethnic flamebait is emphatically not welcome here.
Ban away. What was said in my post is both true and pertinent. On the other hand, what is not germane to the discussion is the moderation-enforced ethos being peddled by YC's etiquette police. I, and many others, are here to discuss tech, including those things which affect tech lifestyle, and this does include Europe's present demographic crisis.
Good luck squelching the world's dissenting worldviews.
I believe a "Masters" in France is roughly equivalent to a Bachelors in USA/Canada. At least that's my understanding from friends in France who basically refer to a high school diploma as Baccalaureate.
Nope. At the university, a "master" is something you get after studying for 5 years, roughly. After 3 years, you get a "licence", which is equivalent to a BA/BS. Engineering schools use a slightly different system, but it's roughly equivalent.
Yeah that's the big debate, isn't it? Is a 4 years anglophone BSc equivalent to a 3 years european Licence, or 5 years Master?
When I was applying to grad schools in the US, my French undergrad was not recognized as a proper undergrad - it had to be a 5 year Master (I snuck around that restriction by spending a year in the UK and getting a british BSc).
But of course, French institutions consider 4 years american degrees to be equivalent to 3 year French degrees (rightfully so in their mind - after all, French people don't waste anytime declaring their major or taking general ed classes, which they have taken in high school; their class load also tends to be higher)
Tl;dr each country thinks their degree is better than the other's
I've studied, taught, interviewed, hired, and worked with many computer science majors from both sides of the system. There's no rule to quickly compare the two in terms of how useful they are in the industry/a research lab.
For example, I've found the average MIT or Stanford BSc to be in a similar league as the average French student from a top 5-year school (eg INSA Lyon, Polytechnique, ETH Zürich, etc).
On the other hand, the average engineer out of a state university BSc is not quite as good as the average engineer out of a French public university licence program.
As I understand it, at the end of school Scottish students take "Higher" exams, and then can either apply to university then, or continue in school and take "Advanced Higher" exams first. And often people doing the latter can skip the first year of university. (As well as people from the UK with good A-level results.)
So while there's the possibility to do an extra year, I think in practice it's mostly equivalent to the UK system.
I'm from Scotland, went to a Scottish University and have a teenage son who just went through the process...
Highers are taken at the end of 5th year - with the 6th year being used for topping up results if they weren't good enough, acquiring Advanced Highers - which are quite often not really required and going to parties...
Some people go to Uni right after the highers (my wife did this and regretted it) and some go into second year directly with Advanced Highers - but very few people I know do either. Schools certainly recommend against both.
Engineering degrees are largely homogenized throughout the English-speaking world (plus a few other countries, but interestingly enough, not France) under the Washington accord.
I don't have a degree (just 35 years of experience shipping products at companies you have definitely heard of). Some of the best engineers I've worked with haven't had degrees. One guy I know (who will never have to work again) didn't even bother to graduate from high school. A few of them have written papers published in academic journals. There is definitely more than "a few lines of code" involved in their careers.
I guess if you're a bureaucrat designing a visa, requiring a degree makes sense. But saying that people lacking degrees aren't good engineers is crazy.
It's a different language. Similar words have different meanings in different parts of the world, simple as that. The American "software engineer" translates to "software developer" in much of continental Europe, even if the locals are sometimes using English words fot that. In Germany, for example, even getting all the fancy certifications will not make you an "Ingenieur“, the term just isn't used for computer science at all. ("Ingenieur“ is shared between disciplines as different as architecture and electrical engineering, but computer science will make you an "Informatiker“)
Btw, when English is borrowing words from other languages they also tend to undergo a significant semantic shift. It's a two way street.
The best developper I know didn't even finished school. I train every month plenty of terrible devs for a living. They all have better formal education than I, yet I'm paid 5 times their salary to teach them how to do their job.
The education system should be giving you clues on who you should hire. But it doesn't fulfill its mission at all.
And Europe wonders why it doesn't have any serious Facebook/Google competitors.
An engineer is anyone who uses technology to solve a problem. Now there's a massive spectrum of quality there, but a piece of paper or two and some classwork doesn't make you an engineer. Or even a particularly good engineer. Just the other day I explained how Hash Tables work to someone with a Masters.
Sure, but by this program's criteria a lot of those people probably wouldn't be considered "Engineers" in their home countries, all because they don't have a piece of paper from some meaningless authority.
From my admittedly limited exposure to the continent and knowing my sister's experience with Swiss Bureaucracy, I can only imagine European government workers get high off the ink from all the rubber stamps required.
I'm a self taught dev with 15+ years' experience. I only got a degree a few years ago (did it while working). Honestly, I learned exactly nothing useful that I didn't already know.
I do a lot of hiring and, in my experience, having a degree (or indeed the class/score of said degree) has no relation to the real-world abilities of candidates.
99% of the time I never even look at the education history of a candidate. At least once it's turned out that someone I've interviewed (and who was hired) turned out not to have a degree. Honestly, not a big deal.
Oh, it's fun if they went to the school I dropped out of [I don't mention that I don't have a degree]. "Is professor Xyztmxl still teaching the OS course, and can any students understand him at all?" Good times, at the end of an interview, when things went well.
But education is almost always irrelevant. I prefer seeing wide-and-deep experience in someone from a no-name school to someone from MIT/Caltech/whatever who's just been pootering around on some narrow Java project for years.
"engineer" in France is a regulated title you can only get through a degree (like Germany?). Actually I'm not even sure most foreign schools degrees would be accepted as engineers in France.
You are discussing about the university degree (as the parent did), but there are other usages of the word "ingénieur" in France beside diplomas.
In France "Ingénieur" is also a civil servant title, or a title given to someone who did that job and is now retired (I am "Ingénieur honoraire" and have a master but no "Ingénieur" diploma).
I'm thinking of getting a degree while working too. Do you think it's worth it? Perhaps if only to make life easier...
I dropped out of uni in my last year due to family/personal issues but I've been working in tech for over 12 years now. I've never needed to show a degree here in the UK but back home (Spain) it used to be an issue. Recently the opportunity to relocate to the USA came up with my employer but I sort of rejected the offer since I assumed that getting a visa might be a bit of a hassle without a degree.
Like it or not, a lot of employers won't even look at your CV if you don't have a degree. Also, if you do want to work outside of the EU, it is very likely that not having a degree will be an impediment to getting a visa (and not just for the USA).
So yes, as silly as I think it is, I do think overall it's worth it.
If you want to do it while working, I can highly recommend the Open University. While I didn't really learn anything I didn't already know with a Computing degree, there is a large choice of courses, the course materials were really good, and the remote tutoring system works well.
When I got my job at NeXT computer I remember Steve Jobs saying to me that there were only two people there without degrees, and he was one of them (and I was the other.)
I know it's not always accurate. But when I am looking at a resume of someone who has a master's in CS, I think either programming was an afterthought for them or, if they had been learning to code all this time, why didn't they go out and get a job long before they had time to finish a masters?
I've never been comfortable with the widespread use of the term "engineer" in software design and development contexts, but that doesn't change the fact that it's kind of a joke to try requiring a master's degree for what's ostensibly a startup/tech oriented visa program. I certainly have the impression that many founders and developers have only bachelor's degrees, or are self taught.
I have a bachelor's degree in EE but do software now and am mostly self taught in that department. I have met my fair share of incompetent programmers with masters degrees though. I like the idea of moving to Europe and working there for a while, but I get the distinct impression they are far more concerned with degrees and credentials over there and I am not sure I would fit in.
Yes, I think the term has been abused and overused, but it's equally wrong in the other direction to dismiss all tech talent simply for lacking a graduate degree.
So are sales engineer/HVAC engineer/stationary engineer/chief engineer/critical facilities engineer/etc...seems like the word, and required training associated with it, is slowly getting cheapened by throwing the title "engineer" on everything.
If they're looking to attract founders, founders will obviously care about exits. It might not be the #1 concern, but it's up there. France has a reputation for very high taxes and a seeming contempt for very large cash windfalls. I'd be curious how they plan to improve this international image.
They're requiring masters degrees for entrepreneur visas. One thing Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Lei Jun, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Travis Kalanic and Cheng Wei all have in common is a lack of a master's degree.
Why would France add a restriction to their visa that would have eliminated the founders of Amazon, Paypal, Tesla, SpaceX, Apple, Xiaomi, Facebook, Microsoft, Oracle, Uber and Didi Chuxing?
Are they pinning all their hopes on someone following the path of Larry Page or Robin Li, except choosing to immigrate to France to start their search engine? Are the people who made the rule just not aware how few of the top tech company founders have master's degrees? Is it some kind of intentional low-beta strategy to try to scoop up a bunch of more certain, smaller wins?
I truly don't understand what kind of reasoning went into to this program. It's just making France look out of touch.
Edit: ok apparently the founder needs money and it's employees who all need masters degrees (nearly as bad).
It doesn't make sense in French to look for less than a master level, whereas the standard is the bachelor in the USA.
"Everyone" has a master in France. The curriculum is 5 years straight in France (either 2 or 5 years). There isn't really such a thing as a 3-4 years bachelor level in engineering.
Some numbers: 60% of programmers have at least a master in France, less than 30% in the USA.
Ah, that's good it doesn't apply to founders. On the other hand, it's still pretty disastrous if your startup does well and you need to hire people. Nearly all the key early hires at the companies I listed above also lacked master's degrees.
> "This is just silly."
It's worse than silly. It's a baked in design flaw that literally would have prevented the foreign successes the program is in theory trying to replicate. It is silly to heavily credentialize an industry focused on doing new things, but it's also destructive.
The US has some enormous hurdles related to immigration, but it also has a network. Once someone is looking at the world outside SV/SF, there are many other places in the world trying to attract startups. Some of them have both stronger tech scenes and less regressive (though I still wouldn't say visionary) immigration requirements.
Why would a founder pick someplace like France, instead of South Korea or Australia where they could have a path to citizenship and a much easier time hiring talent?
It's not a "myth" or "fantasy" that they didn't have master's degrees.
To the best of knowledge any of them would have needed a visa to go to France, and one of them did in fact live in Canada and then the US on visas before naturalising and starting three separate billion dollar companies along the way.
myths and fantasies are not about their degrees but more on the public image we have of us who do more harm than good in my opinion.
"Rather than placing tech leaders on a pedestal, we should put their successes in context..." [1]
I would never advise someone to drop school without a strong family background, a solid bubble opportunity or just luck. And I don't like schools, for me they are clearly not the best places to learn, just to network.
I've been looking forward to more details about this program emerging seeing that I'm a french-speaking francophile who recently made a transition to a career in programming.
The minimum education requirement being a Master's degree is quite disappointing. I fear they are making the same mistake as Japan when the latter introduced their points-based immigration system that requires you to be fluent in Japanese with a Master's degree and published research, making far above the salary any Japanese worker would make in the same position.
France isn't exactly an easy country to immigrate to. I was toying with the idea of doing a Master's earlier this year; this might be the motivation I need to get it done now.
The US has a very similar requirement for their visa (I'm specifically referring to E3, which is the H1B for Australians) which only lets in 'skilled' people, defined by a university degree (or 3 years of work experience for every 1 year of degree, so a total of 9-12 years).
It was pretty disheartening to get a job offer from a big tech firm in New York only to have any chances shot down because of visa...
It will be interesting to see how French engineers and computer scientists see this type of visa. The perhaps equivalent H1B visa in the US is or was obviously a big plus in certain areas but was lately perceived as an abuse channel to get cheap labour to replace the locals. Hopefully this scheme won't be abused...
1) As far as I know, this is only communication stunt. There was no new legislation that eases immigration, it falls in the current set of laws and regulations that didn't seem to cause major issues for now (at least for engineering jobs).
2) At least on the posted website, there isn't any big SS2I/ESN (Societe de Service en Ingenerie Informatique/Entreprise de service du numerique, aka meat renters, like Capgemini, Atos, Sopra-Steria...) or big employers (like Thales, Snecma, Airbus...) in the list. The list seems kind of legit as it seems to be constituted only of small start-ups.
For those who are seriously considering moving to a European nation for work purposes, you might want to also look up the EU blue card scheme[1] which is most likely more flexible than this for employees (no idea of equivalent for founders and investors).
Edit - it turns out that the link I put here is actually for a private company. I haven't had any luck finding a more official link for information. If you can help, I'll update this.
Note that this is (one of many) websites made by private companies that try to appear as official as they can without being (and collect some "fees" on the way). I would be extremely surprised if there were actual employers on that site or if they would actually provide a useful service regarding the real application.
This is PR. Innovation in France in the start up space is stale. Our talents usually go to somewhere else because you get 3 times the pay and much more exciting projects.
Projects here are usually quite classical. Investors are shy with money. People from both sides reject risks, and hence the chance of a big success. They want the unicorns for cheap, without having to go find it in the forest and care for it.
The administrative burden, the taxes and the terrible situation with hiring give the last blow.
France is a terrible place for start ups. We got some. But given the great talent pool we have, I find the quantity and quality pitiful. We have good people here, smart ones, efficient ones, nice onces. And we waste so many opportunities.
Sure, but it's not just that. The quality of life could be argued to be significantly higher than in other places.
The job security once you land a decent gig is not something to be discarded. This being said, Macron does plan on making it easier for people to be fired, in order to make it easier for companies to hire. This is a big topic that I could rant for hours about.
You do get all-inclusive health care. In addition to what the government provides, most 40k€ jobs will come with an extra private insurance ("mutuelle"), which will effectively reduce health costs for you and your family to 0. Depending on how nice your company is, you might be _taxed_ on an extra 20-40€ of monthly income, which gives mutuelle rights to you and your family. If you're unlucky, 20-40€ will be deducted from your pay for every family member on the mutuelle. This is usually not negotiable as it is managed/negotiated by the employee representatives/unions.
You also get fairly decent rents. 600€/month will get you a flat in any city, except Paris/Lyon. 1000-1400€ will get you a nice place in most cities.
You also get access to a decent transportation network to most Europe, and a very good internet connectivity, at the consumer level.
I moved from France to Denmark. I would say my wealth has increased (2-3x salary increase), but my overall stress has massively increased. France has a lot of good things going for it.
My health insurance is paid by my company and I don't really care about free education.
Yet, after all my bills, groceries for the month and rent (which is around $2k/month) is paid, I still have almost $2k / month in my pocket to do whatever I want. Good luck to have that in France.
The quality of life in Southern California is miles ahead from what I could have in France. My only regret is about food.
I went to an engineering school in France. In France it takes 5 years to get a master degree.
Each year we must do an internship that varies in length between 1 month in first year to 6 months in the final year.
While I was in school, one of my friend and me, created a small game server hosting company (Minecraft, counter strike, ...). We started with 0€ and ended up with ~2k/month each, more than the minimal salary, while being students. We were working on that after school and during the week ends. It was technically challenging and we both learned a lot quickly (Rails, how to manage and promote a company, how to handle customer service, ...) .I remember we even used the first versions of Docker to create game server containers.
Thanks to that, I got an internship in Switzerland during my 2nd year.
That school requires that during your 3rd year of study you have to do a 3 months minimum internship (up to 9 months using your 4th year) in an english speaking coutry.
Most of the students go to the UK or Australia, because they are cheap options, but thanks to my job in Switzerland I had tons of money and I wanted to go to New York so I sent hundreds of resume to companies in New York. I finally got contacted for an internship offer but in San Diego. I had no better option so I accepted. I didn't even know where was San Diego.
I worked during 9 months and I loved this city. I went back to France to get my degree and instead of doing my final internship in France, like everyone does to get a job, I sent a couple of resume to companies in San Diego.
It was way more easy this time due to my first experience and I was able to get an offer from one of the best company in San Diego.
I worked well and after I got my degree the company wanted to switch me full time, so they applied for an H1B. I did not get it the first year but got it the second time. I had to work remotely for ~9 months because my intern visa (J1) expired but I finally went back to San Diego. Now I'm waiting on my green card (EB2).
There are more people in San Diego (~1.2M) than all of South Dakota (~800k). Even absent the context of replying to a comment about having moved to San Diego, I think it would be reasonable to assume that "SD" stands for San Diego instead of South Dakota.
I should have said "Good luck to have that in France, when you are fresh out of school".
I know you can have the same salary in Paris than in the US but it requires 20 years of experience and two degrees from X and Normal Sup.
My friends make on average ~1800€/month after tax and most of them still need to live with their parents. A majority of them want to move out of France. I understand them, no way you study so hard to make 600€ more than the minimum wage (~1200€/month).
>> The job security once you land a decent gig is not something to be discarded.
The thing is that most young people without connections are not employed in "CDI" anymore. 80% of recruitments are done in "CDD", which becomes the norm.
An what means "job security"? if your company wants to fire you it can easily, it just has to do it a decent way.
I don't speak Danish, although I can read it fairly well---Dutch helps a lot.
Language isn't much of a barrier. English works in 90% of cases, and broken Danish works in the other 10%. The first two modules of Danish classes are sufficient to survive anything given a proficient level of English (for context, there are around 6 or 7 modules, and they're all free, sponsored by the local government).
The main sources of stress are lodging, weather, and social life.
Finding a place to live is ridiculously difficult. As a foreigner, you will be forced to pay 12-15k DKK to get anything decent (think 2k€). Having to deal with short term rentals, visiting places daily for 2-3 months on end to find something you both like and can afford, etc. Dealing with landlords who abuse the terms of the contract, openly cheat and game the system, outright lie and manipulate. I currently pay 15k for a 110m2 flat, 20 minutes bike distance from the city center. My Danish friends tell me I'm overpaying and should get on waiting lists (which take anywhere from 1 to 10 years to come to fruition), my immigrant friends tell me how lucky I am.
The weather might sound like a frivolous point, but the lack of sunlight during the winter, and the overabundance of it during the summer will strain your body. At least it did mine. Random chocolate cravings in the winter. Insomnia during the summer.
The last point, social life, is an interesting one. Although I know a lot more people, and have more "friends" than I did when I lived in the UK, France, or Australia, they are a lot more difficult. Drinking is a real problem, and the fact that I don't is even moreso. There's such a social pressure to drink, that I often have to give in. I often have to order a beer not to be laughed at, interrogated, etc. There's also a lot more pressure to become a parent. Maybe this is due to my age, but it is a topic that has come up a lot more than anywhere else. Heck, when I interviewed here before moving, it was one of the selling points ("You know, Denmark is a _great_ place to have kids.")
In fairness: I'm working in startups now, which probably also accounts for a good portion of the increased stress.
15k for 110m2 is not unreasonable if you are 20 min bike from city center. I feel ya though with regards to accommodation, but that is honestly mostly a problem in Copenhagen/Aarhus, and not so much in smaller cities, like say Vejle. For the larger cities to go cheap, you have to know a guy that knows a guy, or be related to someone with an apartment :(
Those aforementioned cities are University cities, and also the central hub for a lot of companies, making it a quite big problem. If you think you have it hard with a full paying job, imagine what the students go through, that pay ~5k DKK for just a room.
The weather I’ll grant you, if honestly hate summers because of the light and heat, since air conditioning is not really a common thing in DK.
And heh, if you don’t drink in Denmark, you are automatically gonna miss out on a lot of things, it’s such an ingrained part of the culture. That said, it has definitely become more acceptable to say no in recent years, but it works best if you are consistent, because else people will know they can nudge you into it and get you on board. If you are consistent, it will get respected (eventually at least).
The minimum salary for people who work in France on this Visa is €53,836.50 by law. The minimum legal salary for people working on H1B in the US is $60000, but in practice, the salary is of course much higher.
This isn't going to draw very many Silicon Valley engineers to France, but it could bring some people to France who failed to get an H1B.
That barrier affects Americans and Indians (and other H1B seekers) equally. The difference is that most H1B seekers have more motivation to leave their own countries.
You can compare contracting in London/Zurich/other financial centre. There you can get on par with SF salaries as contractor.
Btw, rent in London is about the same as SF or slightly higher. So even with benefits included it's a worse deal.
I don't know what the situation with renting is like in Paris but given how low salaries are rent would have to be much lower compared to London in order for it to make sense to work there instead.
Very French for them to require a masters degree for employees. Contrast that to the more welcoming working permit in Germany[1]. Also currently the startup scene in Berlin looks pretty interesting!
As some here have posted disparaging comments about French bureaucracy, I'd like to share my own experience. I've have emigrated to France four years ago with my wife and our two kids. On the whole our experience dealing with the government has been quite positive.
Yes, some stuff feels really backwards, like getting a bank account (it helps a lot if you have a big wad of cash to dangle in front of your banker, you'll get treated differently), the RSI (social security for entrepreneurs) and the CAF (child support) are frustratingly incompetent, but most bureaucrats we dealt with have been quite understanding to our needs and some of them have really gone out of their way to help us.
I think it really depends who you stumble upon, and most of all - if you make an effort to speak French (which is definitely one of the hardest things about emigrating to France) you'll find that in the end it all works out, it just might take some time!
I am all for learning French and doing it "their way." The challenge I've run into with it "just taking some time" is for some things you don't have time. Things need to be done at or by a certain time. Like setting up utilities, getting a bank account, housing, signing up for healthcare, enrolling kids in school, etc. Those can't take time, they need to be done as soon as possible. So you have to get them done before you are good at the language and before you understand the processes. Things have worked out for us but Year 1 was a constant scramble. Reducing the burden of all that I think it what would really help recruit talent.
At this point it seems that many Europe nations are more "free" than the US. Now with same-sex marriage getting legal in germany the probably last big issue is resolved. You will not get extreme high salaries like in the US, but there is stuff like free higher education and getting serious medical care won't be expensive at all.
Also remember that the EU has a higher population than the US with very diverse countries to explore just a few hours apart, all rich of culture and stuff that is over thousand years old.
I find European culture and history alluring, but I don't think Europe is somehow "more free" than the U.S., in particular, you guys have much more regulation and far greater taxes. Maybe you have a greater quality of life by certain measures, but I think the freedom point is hard to defend. Maybe I'm wrong?
Taxes are not higher everywhere, and where they are higher it's usually because there is really awesome infrastructure and a social safety net and other stuff you would normally want to finance collectively. Compare, say, the homeless situation in Berlin to that in San Francisco... or compare pretty much any bus system anywhere in the developed world to MUNI.
One freedom Europeans have is freedom from fear of the police, i.e. I don't think there's any country in Europe in which you might have to fear for your life when you're not doing anything wrong and happen to meet a cop, regardless of your skin color.
Also I think there's more political freedom in countries where small parties play a role in government, i.e. you don't have to choose between the Democrats or Republicans or a symbolic protest vote.
And while this varies by country, there are places where you can be just as "off the grid" as in the US and the bureaucracy will never find you (or even try). But I wouldn't try that in, say, Germany.
Anyway, that said I wouldn't propose that an American is likely to feel "more free" living in Europe, probably the opposite, but in some things they probably would be.
Source: US American living in Europe for a long time. :-)
Maybe taxes in California are crater than Croatia, but I would be very surprised if the average tax want much greater in Europe than in the US. Do you have specific places in mind?
I also think fear of police is overblown in the US (maybe I would feel differently if my skin were a different color, but this doesn't appear to have a basis in data), and "freedom from fear of police" isn't really a political freedom (at least in my mind) unless you are referring to police oppressing people for their speech, political affiliations, etc, which clearly is a non-issue in the US. That said, while the odds of being injured or killed by police are many times greater than in Europe, they are still miniscule. It seems analogous to the recently heightened risk of terrorist activity in Europe--many times greater than in the US, but still not a reason to avoid Europe.
I do think Europe is a good value proposition for a lot of people (I've lived there and occasionally consider trying to move back), but I don't think Europeans have more freedom.
The tax picture is complicated, as always, but consider Hungary, where VAT is very high (27%) but income tax is very low (15% flat tax). Vibrant tech scene, programmers are paid very well by local standards, etc.
Having gotten quite used to the mellow police of Europe (not that I've ever been arrested or anything) I find the militarized police of the US unnerving every time I go back. Not sure I'd call it a political freedom but having mostly-friendly cops even in a really big city is a big quality of life thing.
Plus, drinking beer on the tram (in Berlin) -- that's definitely a freedom you won't enjoy in California. :-)
Good example: There is no homeschooling allowed in Germany. And private schools and universities are rare. The public education system is full of international socialist propaganda.
You are not. In fact Europe tends to be worse. The main reason is, that law is now made in Brussels and people have no idea what's going on there. In the past years we have seen a huge flip to the right side. The eastern nations are largely in the hands of ultra-right wing politicians even worse than Trump. Germany stands but wait for the election this year and that might be gone, too. Britain is already leaving the party and France just dodged a Bullet but got Macron in return. It's not all bad here, but it keeps getting worse.
>> The main reason is, that law is now made in Brussels and people have no idea what's going on there.
False but typical argument. Some laws are voted in Brussels, all such laws have to be approved by the Europen Parliament whose members are directly elected (you elected a MEP, remember?), and many such laws are just harmonization of local laws that already existed in most member states.
The moment where we may have 'no idea' is when a law is drafted and negociated behind closed doors by the Commission, i.e the EU governments' representatives (your government and my government) who then conveniently blames Brussels for said 'closed doors', when it suits them.
There are reforms to be made in the EU for sure, but saying it is all-encompassing and secret is a mischaracterisation. The info is out there, it's just not spoon-fed to you by the media, mostly because it's boring. For example, what is being voted on can be accessed here:
http://www.votewatch.eu/en/term8-european-parliament-latest-...
What freedoms do you think are missing in Europe? Owning a gun?
Taxes are higher because they include health insurance, free education, retirement benefits and unemployment insurance.
I believe it. I wonder if that figure assumes personal insurance and the like as opposed to corporate benefits. I imagine for the HN crowd, the US is the better financial bargain (obviously there are lots of other factors besides finances) but if I were low income maybe I would prefer the EU?
I consider myself a highly patriotic American and I used to think that France was much less free than the US, but after living here I have a different view. There seem to be fewer extremes in France: not so many rich people, not so many poor people. No one seems to get too worked up about anything. You can't so easily go buy dirt cheap, low quality food/clothes/cars/housing that are just going to cause you problems later. There is a ton of administration (see my comments elsewhere in this thread) but most of it you only have to do once. Drivers licenses last 15 years. You register you car once and pay tax once, not every year, and the tax isn't that much. No required safety and admissions tests. Property tax is really low (600 euros a year on a 200K euro house). Gas is more expensive, but everything else is generally the same as the US (I live outside Paris).
Auto insurance costs me 25 euros a month for two drivers, two vehicles, with unlimited personal liability and 100 million euro property damages liability (not a typo). Doctor's visits are 25 euros each time and basically no other fees at all (from what I can tell). It's cheap and easy to register a small business. I rarely see police. I've seen a car pulled over by police 1 time in 1 year.
Once you get all your paperwork in line and get "in the system" life is pretty good. It's calm and you have a lot of social protections which brings peace of mind. It's safe. Crime is low. Food quality is off the charts. If you haven't been to France, come just for the food. You'll never be the same. Food quality is high and prices are a little lower than in the US. You pay more in taxes, but not a lot more (ignoring having to pay US income tax as an expat).
So it has caused me to look at freedom differently. Here in France it feels like the government is actually on your side, working to protect you. I've never felt that way in the US. I'm sure France has it's corruption and injustices but it seems much lower than the US.
The US is more like the Wild West. You are free, but you have to defend yourself. You have to do everything on your own: plow the field, milk the cows, stand with a shotgun when someone rides in. It's a sort of "dangerous" freedom. I'd take that over being subjugated, but France seems to have a better perspective. I think the climate and culture are the reason why, not really the form of government. And I don't think there is as much racial or ethnic strife here.
So I think France is actually pretty free. But I don't know if the US would get the same results if it just implemented the same policies. I think there would need to be a cultural change first.
I like France, and I lived there for a short time (near Rennes) and just returned from a trip to Paris a few weeks ago. There is certainly a lot to like, my comment was only about the degree of freedom. Thanks for your thoughtful comment!
You don't have Trump, but other than Switzerland, any of the European countries are within a generation of being ruled by an autocrat with far more power than Trump. From Franco in Spain, De Gaulle in France, Hitler in Germany and even some the of post WWII Chancellors were pretty autocratic. In addition, Europe seems to have far more tolerance for government intervention in everyday life. In addition, especially in Germany, criminal speech codes have kept a lot of badness under the surface without a legal way to voice it.
Thus, IMHO there is a volcano under the surface, and if it goes off and someone like Trump comes to power,they will be controlling a more pervasive government that can do far more harm than the US government.
Germany is currently raiding people's homes for posting anything they deem "hate speech" online. Facebook can be fined 50 million now for not removing what the German government deems hate speech. No WrongThink allowed in Germany.
That isn't "freedom" in my mind and I think any member of HN should be horrified at the precedent being set for the future. What happens when someone who comes into power determines "hate speech" is anything that goes against them?
Ironically, Germany has returned to Nazi policies in their attempts to prove they aren't Nazis anymore.
Your freedom ends where my freedom begins. Hate speech only does harm other people, so why should we tolerate it? Sure it may be abused under circumstances, but afaik most people here are in favor of these laws. Just because you disagree doesn't make us less free. Oh and of course we're talking about obvious hate speech here, not suppressing political discussion.
By the way, we already had the "Stasi" in Germany and know exactly how real political censorship feels like. There is quite a difference between that and trying to protect peasants from being harassed to death.
The tone of your post indicates you have no idea what you are talking about. In Europe hate speech laws are a thing, essentially it is considered a form of libel and/or intimidation. It exists across most of Europe, and has existed for decades.
You may agree or disagree with that kind of (again, fairly common) legal framework, but this has nothing to do specifically with Germany or with 2017. The only news in this article is that until now typically they would act on social media only following complaint, whereas now they are acting as if it were traditional media (i.e. acting once it is published).
They might get higher numbers, but they are paid in Dollar which is less worth than Euro, also everything is more expensive there than it is here, especially rent and food.
Uh, what? Have you been to the United States before? Everything, and I mean everything is incredibly cheap here. I'm just like an average dev in flyover country and I max out my retirement savings, bought a house, and can go buy a BMW and fill it up with <$2.00/gal gasoline, oh and that's just on my income. Doesn't include spouse. And after I fill up with gas I can go to an average grocery store that is far larger than just about anything I've seen in all my European travels and buy like 50 avocados for $0.89/ea, then go buy a bottle of Grey Goose for $30, pour it out, then buy another one and pretend I'm in Europe paying Europe prices for things.
Right, which is why I said average. Average American grocery stores are nearby and sell a gigantic amount of food. And the quality is exactly the same or better.
Rent is far cheaper in the U.S. My last apartment was $450/month for 600 sq ft in a good neighborhood. I paid $650 for less than half of that in rural France.
Food is probably cheaper too, though not as dramatically.
I'm sure there are lots of perks to living in Europe, but rent is not among them.
For 600 sq ft? That's not hard to find anywhere in the Midwest. Here are dozens of results for Waterloo, IA for below $600, many of which are much larger than 600 sq ft:
Those figures don't normalize for apartment size. The "cost to buy" figures do, however, and they show the US costing less than half the price in Germany.
Strange, to me it's the converse experience, my appartement in downtown Montpellier, is cheaper and bigger than my girlfriend's appartement in south Scottsdale, AZ.
From reading the comments there seems to be huge potential for a startup in France: Making it easy to navigate the bureaucracy. Automate everything, streamline communications, speed up enquiries, etc
This is assuming that the bureaucracy cannot be disrupted itself outside of the government. I imagine if such a startup would work it would have lots of popular support. Uber for Bureaucracy.
I wonder if there are any avenues to do this as a sole proprietor? I'm an unattached programmer with a bunch of independent projects released and in the works, but I'm not really interested in doing a full-on "startup". Currently looking into DAFT, but I think France is a bit closer to my heart!
You could get a long term visitor visa. Lasts one year and is renewable. You need to prove that you have income, medical insurance, and promise not to work for a French company in France. http://sanfrancisco.consulfrance.org/spip.php?article2703
Four years renewable is nice, but the higher tiers of "international tech talent" employees are usually eligible for a permanent residence permit in Germany.
Does France have anything to compete with that, other than better food?
It's four years renewable for the residence permit, but really the important thing is to have a work contract. You get the residence permit because of the work contract. So if you still have a work contract after four years, you would just apply for another residence permit. You can have a work contract that has no expiration (no fixed duration).
Yes, but with my permanent residence permit I can take a year off to write poetry (if I could afford it) then come back and take a part-time job in a cafe or be a freelancer, and nothing would happen to my status.
I'm not arguing that it's better to live in Germany than in France, that depends on way too many variables (not just the food of course). But it would be nice to see more competition. Maybe if other EU countries really started beating Germany for tech talent acquisition, Germany might finally wake up and allow dual citizenship. (Wishful thinking on my part.)
Just a friendly reminder: as of today there has been a state of emergency in France for over a year now. We are talking about situation with regular army with full automatic assault weapons on the streets and police authorized to enter apartments without court order.
Yes. It was a temporary measure that as been prolonged more and more. It's rather concerning, but what's worst is that the population really doesn't see the problem with it. If anything goes in the direction away from freedom with a security label attached to it, everybody will follow happily. This is the receipe for a new dictatorship. But of course if you say that you are crazy because there is no way our country would do that ever. We are so clever. Better than the rest of the world. And history's lesson don't apply to us.
Had to work in England in the 90's for a week and the bus on the route I used was blown up two hours after I got off by the IRA. All the London landmarks were patrolled by army soldiers with rifles. Everyone can get used to almost any circumstance, the odds of being a victim of a terror attack are miniscule. I'm much more likely to get hit by a drunk driver in the USA.
I refuse to accept the "you are more likely to die in a road accident" argument. Simply refuse. Ironically the terrorist attack in Berlin last December was initially categorized as a road accident.
Well if we accept that wikipedia has statistics correct, in the USA in 2006 about 18,000 people were killed as a result of drunk driving accidents. This compares to the approximate 3000 killed in the 2001 terrorists attacks, so we in the USA accept the number of victims of about one 9/11 attack every two months as a necessary risk of driving, if the cause is a drunk driver.
In the same article, the USA is noted as having a higher DUI rate than either the UK or Australia in spite of both those countries having a lower legal drinking age and higher consumption of alcohol.
I'm Canadian and have a 15 month old, so I'm not as up on European news as I should be. Does that state of emergency stem from the Paris attacks in 2015?
It was supposed to be a temporary state but no politician wants to be responsible of an attack if they shut it off...
I don't live in Paris but overall this doesn't change daily life by much. You basically only see a couple police officers in front of police stations and a couple guards in front of universities.
IMO it is unlikely, because France's state budget (always in huge deficit since 10 years) is already under scrutinity by EU commission, which means in practice that France has to implement in law whatever the EU commission "recommends".
Turning that into a national slur is gross and against the spirit of this site. Please don't post anything like this again. The HN community crosses many international divides and basic mutual respect is a sine qua non of commenting here.
Speaking of Yankees and baseball hats, what is with the French and Yankee ball caps? I see them all over and never any other team. I always expect them to be Americans but they rarely are.
Also I vouched for this submission after it was flagged. I don't believe you meant Yankee as a slur, and even if you did, I have better things to do today than be offended.
I think it is because the logo looks cool, and american stuff is "cool". It's rarely a support of the team, and some people don't even know it is a team logo...
No, negative comments with backup and other information are incredibly valuable. Moreso when the topic is something as difficult (and potentially foolish) as moving to a foreign country.
Negative comments with absolutely no further information don't add anything more to the conversation, and they have the potential to create paranoia where none should be.
I have many pleasant memories of living in France many years ago: great food, strong respect for ideas, great ambiance. And, no, I did not speak French and never encountered any bias from the Parisians, despite my California way of speaking.
Berlin and Stockholm sound good too, have never been. But I would respond first to the nation that is proactively reaching out.
I don't view it as "cashing in on the Trump situation" as much as throwing a lifeline to those of us who are drowning in a sea of hate and anti-science.
You won't really find a nation right now that is anti-science. If France would care about science it would try to fix their school system to produce more scientist. But instead they prefer to lure people in their mess of a nation.
Umm, I think it is not aimed at only people from the US who want to migrate but also to potential talent who were considering the US as an option for investment or as the next step in their careers.
Yeah there is a big PR spin to the whole thing but can you really fault the French for using the same approach the US did? Isn't that what the US did all those years when it sold the idea of the American Dream, which in reality isn't all that it was cracked out to be?
Try Germany then, free healthcare and still a better wealth distribution than France has so you won't have to watch out for bad neighbourhoods like every other Arrondissement in Paris.
Macron basically just re-branded the socialist party, which wasn't exactly popular. And while his optics may be better than Le Pen, Trump or whoever, France still has deep economic and social problems, and a continuation of the status quo is unlikely to change that.
