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.
