A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France

Well, that means you're part of the "1%". In that case, you obviously don't have (m)any real problems. So, if you're thinking for the "1%", then your logic holds up.

If on the other hand you believe to be part of the "1%" soon, then this quote may be of interest to you:

“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” - Ronald Wright, A Short History of Progress

Even if you can pay for it, doesn't mean you can get it. Pre-ACA, I knew people who had the levels of income you're talking about (and higher) who couldn't buy health insurance on their own at any price.

Some of them could get insurance through employer groups, assuming they didn't want to retire, assuming a given employer wanted to hire them, and assuming a given employer wanted them in a given risk pool. What they couldn't do was buy insurance on the individual market.

We're apparently about to return to those days.

See:

   http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/20/opinion/20Dubinsky.html

   http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_dismal_science/2012/03/pre_existing_conditions_the_real_reason_insurers_won_t_cover_people_who_are_already_sick_.html

2. Quality of live is definitly higher in some parts of europe. There are public statistics for that

[1] https://www.numbeo.com/quality-of-life/rankings_by_country.j...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report

[3] http://www.businessinsider.com/happiest-countries-best-quali...

There is really no reason to argue that, more money does not mean more quality of life. Especially its very different if you look below to the IT bubble.

Are you sure you're counting it as 200k and not a higher number? With taxes in the bay area, at least 70k of that is gone and surviving on 30k/year is kind of tough if you want to save a full 100k.

Doubt that. Contracting in London is very profitable. That's possibly the easiest money on the continent.

Most people, even most developers, are not comparing such a high salary against Europe because most of us don't have a salary like yours.

If your chosen standard is that software developers must be financially independent demi-gods after ten years, then yes, by that standard, European developers are underpaid. It's not clear that that's really the correct standard, though.

The problem is the limited number of places. All the persons around me struggle to find a place in nursery for their childrens.

> * Quality public schools.

It is highly dependent on which school. In lot of public school, it's shit.

> $130k in the US [...] vs. $50k

Just no, a $130k salary in the US would be at least 70k€ in Paris. In others city it would probably be less but the cost of living would be much less too.

> there's even talk of actually forcing men to take paternity leave

Just because one organization (OFCE) ask for it 3 days ago doesn't make it a reality.

> even something as simple as getting business-class internet requires a SIRET number

I pay 30€/month for 1Gbits/250Mbs. If you need more than that, you're already a business and have a SIRET. Same for the phone line. I don't know about incorporation paperwork in the US but I did it alone in France and it was really not that hard. It took me a week max to get everything.

> Paris -- expensive, somewhat dirty, a dreadful public transport system

It's 73€/month, and half is paid by your employer for unlimited access to all transport in Île-de-France. Do you really find this expensive? Paris also provide the "best access to public transport in the world" according to some recent article. http://www.thelocal.fr/20161011/parisians-have-best-access-t... Yes some place are dirty but isn't that the case all over the world?

That said Paris is far from my favorite city in France. And as you said the job market is probably far less liquid than in the US because of the CDI. Even if I personally think that this is a good thing. In software development/operations there is still more jobs than applicant at least in Paris.

This myth has to stop. It's almost impossible to fire anyone on the spot. You can't tell them "go home, and I don't want to hear from you again". You have to give them up to 3 months notice (depending on the contract, for engineers, it's going to be 3 months).

But you can still have them go home and never come back, as long as those 3 months are paid.

Edit: BTW, it works both ways. You can't quit on a whim either. You need to give the same amount of notice.

For example "almost impossible to fire anyone" : the up to 1 year trial period is pretty much hire-and-fire at will. After that, it's never too hard to fire a single employee. It's true that mass firings are quite heavily regulated though.

I remember very well when French employers forced me to get more holidays, which destroyed the income I needed to actually afford any holidays at all.

For the benefit of non-French readers, let's clarify that the kind of 40€/month health insurance you're talking about is called "mutuelle", which is optional extra private insurance that covers the remaining third or so of each medical bill, after mandatory state insurance ("sécurité sociale") took care of the first two thirds (slightly oversimplified explanation : the coverage ratio varies and you might sometimes still be out of pocket slightly)

In other words, France has a hybrid paying system which gets a lot of criticism, but I think is actually the best of both worlds : it means patients get almost complete freedom in choosing their private doctor/hospital, but most of the bill is still footed by state insurance. You don't have to attend a specific surgery as in most public systems (UK NHS), and there are no mandatory "provider networks" like with most US/UK private health insurance.

The drawback for the very poor, is that it's not entirely free (but there's special help available to get on a "mutuelle")

In the UK where I live, on the other hand, the National Health Service is almost completely free for patients and often has great staff, but is chronically subject to government cuts, unavailability of "non-essential" treatments, and unacceptable waiting times.

So, most people in the UK who can afford it buy private insurance (if they don't get denied because of "preexisting conditions", a notion that doesn't exist in France) and go to completely different doctors / hospitals than the NHS. It's a two-speed system which doesn't feel right when you're used to the French one.

Employee Taxes on the "Raw" salary are approx ~23% usually, that does not match your 5k. Are you talking about the yearly "income taxes"? But then your 45K were not "raw" in the French sense?

South East USA. All numbers in USD.

Gross earnings = 104000 / year Bonus + Stocks = ~12000 / year

Income tax = 31986 (27.5%) (Fed + State + Social security + Medicare)

Earnings after taxes = 84014

Expenses : -----------

Rent : 1 BR in the city = 800/month or 9600/year (Living by myself)

Utilities = 150 / mont or 1800 / year (Phone + Internet + Electricity)

401K contributions = 628/month or 7545 /year (My only retirement savings. I don't think there'd be anything in Social security in my time of need)

Car payments - 500/ month or 6000/year

Gas/fuel = 110 / month or 1320/year

Car Insurance = 150 / month or 1800 /year

Restaurants/bars = 600 / month or 7200 / year

Misc expenses = 3600 / year

Balance = 45149

I have a personal family commitment expense of 7200/year.

Employer provides health insurance and also 800 per year as seed money into my HSA(which I can use to meet deductible for the insurance).

Even after all this, I'm a dumbass who didn't save that much.

I think I'm at the best situation in terms of making money.

Plot twist : I'd most likely move to Denmark or Netherlands later this year because my GF is needing to be there. I'm taking the leap saying, new experiences and crafting a family life is better than saving money.

Brutto salary is €40k w/o bonuses; There’s flat 10% income tax and after maxing out fully the pension and health insurance payments the take-home pay roughly €35k.

I’m living w/ my girlfriend as well, so below numbers are to be divided. The expenses are as follow.

Rent

€250,00/mo for 70m2 / 1 bedroom apartment, fully equiped w/ new furniture in a nice and quiet neighbourhood.

Utilities

€30,00/mo electricity, €10,00/mo phone, €10,00/mo internet

Transportation

I’ve recently bought VW Golf 1.6TDI 2013’ in cash, so no car payments. Taxes and insurance are roughly €170,00/year. I’ve budgeted about €100,00/mo for fuel. Public transportation is fine, but we don’t use it.

Other

We don’t go to bars/restaurants and normally cook daily at home. About €250,00 are going for food, as this is mostly organic and local produced food w/ paleo-ish eating habits.

Total expenses are about ~€600/mo, which is 20% of my take-home pay; the rest is going to a generic savings account at the moment.

So, if you get approximately like 30k free every year, how much time would it take you to buy your own flat and car?

* 30€/mo unlimited fiber internet access (TV, unlimited calls included)

* 20€/mo mobile (4G, 50GB data, unlimited calls/SMS)

24000€ of gross (the company pay ~0.30 * 24000 = 31200€). 18360€ (1530€/month) is my income but on that i pay ~1000€ of taxes (salary tax) and ~400€ of city tax(this vary from city to city).

My rent is 360€/month for 60 square meters, sure i live in the middle of nowhere regarding jobs.

After all the mandatories costs of life i can save ~550€/month ~6600/year.

There is an agreement between France and several countries including Canada. Once you will retire, if you have worked 10 years in Canada and 30 years in France, then you will get 3/4 of your money from the French Pension plan, and 1/4 from the Canadian one.

This agreement works whether you are French or Canadian.

But, that said you can put a lot of money into TFSAs and RRSPs.

These engineers may find once migrated (especially after a few years, ie slightly older) that the option of having children not to be burden in such a system, might find the safety net of not worrying about health and insurance increase their ability to focus on being productive instance of simple grinders, especially if well educated and motivated.

The social benefits are only worthwhile when you are older (you should have done it the other way around :) ) and you are reminded of the administrative difficulties half the time you use them.

Mid-range food may be less expensive here but service is just terrible (well, not 100% of the time but it happens often enough to be really annoying).

I thought the AZERTY and QWERTY layouts were about the same if you touchtype. There should be a software option to switch it.

A very odd thing to say, since in most of (Northern, at least) Europe salaries are paid tax-deducted. When I was in the UK my salary was my net income, nothing to declare or confirm. And it's been like that since the 60s.

First, things like health care and free university are a huge deal if you plan to stay past your 30's. Consider being able to take a couple years to try a business without freaking out about health insurance. Consider being able to go get a PhD in some interesting subject without having to get a full scholarship. Consider, obviously, having kids and sending them to world-class universities without incurring any debt.

Then there's the job security aspect. It can be really nice to be employed in a country where people aren't just laid off whenever a company misses its quarterly numbers.

And finally, if you really are an actual Expert in a field where that's worth a lot of money, it's probably worth about as much in France as it is elsewhere. Sure all the "senior" programmers with 3 years' experience get paid a lot less than in the US, but I don't think the VP level does badly at all.

(Maybe I'm being naive here... my point of reference being Germany.)

I hear it can be very hard to get a proper, "permanent" job in France, but I also hear the quality of life is pretty amazing if you do.

I'm in my early 30s, and up until last year never needed any sort of real medical treatment my entire life. Then I got I to a bike accident, fractured my tibia, almost needed surgery, and was damn glad that I did have health insurance. I could've just as easily not broken my ankle, or it could've been way, way worse. But I don't judge the value of insurance based on whether I happened to need it any given year; that's just dominated by chance.

Wait, what? What if you are diagnosed with a major illness? Are in a major car accident? etc, etc.

The problem in the US is that people who are otherwise comfortable and healthy have their entire fortunes turn around, for the rest of their lives, due to unforeseen illness/incidents.

I lived in Austria and Switzerland. I never had to wait more than a few days and private clinics are usually allowed to go to without additional costs. Please dont project your experience to whole europe/eu

I live in the US with H1B. I still pay Social Security, and Medicare/aid every paycheck. Don't you? Isn't it the same as what you said? Paying into a social system that probably won't be in a shape to pay you later?

And when you are a pensioner, who will foot your bill?

What do you do?

Plenty of people make more than they do though. These are not especially high-paying positions, they're not even the highest paying government positions.

> financial life ruined

in the EU, not so much.

This kind of braggadocio statement is why the hate for tech workers is growing. It shows a serious lack of perspective and an incredible amount of arrogance and condescension.

It's also very untypical, even for a skilled tech worker in America.

Every time I switch employers, or my employers switch insurance, it begins a long process of getting the right info (the insurance always contracts out specialty drugs), then getting that info to the doctors office (Drs offices, btw, never make it easy to talk to someone), then the doctor has to send the info to the right insurance company (rare is the doctors office that follows through the first time), then the insurance company will sit on it for a while (I've heard crazy things like "it takes 48 hours before we can confirm that we got the fax, and only then can we begin to 'process' the fax, which can take 1 day to 1 week"), and probably reject it. Then I have to find out this happened (this is absurdly difficult), then the drs office can appeal. Last time the appeal actually involved my wife's doc talking to an insurance company doc on the phone! Thankfully, her doctor is unusually reachable and was willing to do this.

So, generally speaking, it takes 1-2 months before she can get the medication that prevents her from being effectively crippled. since the previous insurance gave 1-3 months at a time, she often ends up falling behind on doses when this occurs.

I've had 2 jobs in the last 5 years, but 5 insurance companies (my companies kept spinning off or getting absorbed), and each time the process was stressful, even though each health care plan was quite good, relative to most of the US. So I can see a healthcare argument as being highly relevant.

Add in those that work 1099 or other such arrangements, and it matters more.

Also, those numbers are not directly comparable (e.g. in Germany a lot of what used to be counted as gvt is now private: the work done is the same, as are the obligations, but it appears in a different "bucket").

This, predictably enough, had the effect of people coming to work sick, because if you took the day off you'd lose a vacation day.

Now it seems the new trend is to have no specific number of free days, but leave it up to the employee to take however many days off he/she feels are necessary. Then it's up to their manager to deal with it if they take "too many."

This lets you tell people they can take vacations, while not carrying any liability to pay them for the unused vacation if they quit or are laid off / fired.

The downside is that there is no longer any incentive to take any specific amount of vacation (after all, it's not accrued and can't expire). So if you're really busy, maybe you'll never take more than a couple days at a time.

The upside would seem to be that if you're a top performer and manage your time very well and have a cool manager, you can potentially take a LOT of time off without violating any company policy. I have however not heard any stories of this being done.

I moved to Poland from the UK yonks ago, and have equally disastrous - if not worse - language skills as you.

Not long after arriving, I accidentally got a job at a startup, and I'd been led to believe everything was done in English internally: communications; client emails; heck, even variable names in the code, all was in English and I had nothing to fear.

This turned out to be a slight exaggeration; anything in English was the rare exception, rather than the rule.

You know what, though? Even without lessons and fully resenting Polish's grammar, you learn really quick. You also won't be facing this alone; as long as you're actually capable of getting the job done, plenty of local language speakers in your office will bend over backwards to encourage and help you.

Don't let language be the only thing holding you back. If I had my time again, I'd let things like bureaucracy and road safety guide my decision rather than what noises come out of peoples' mouths.

Then one day he found his future wife who could speak only in German, and he picked it up instantly.

You'll get better results within 1 month living in the target place

But yeah, English being the modern lingua franca is a major benefit to SV, London, etc.

The math/tech background helped a lot in the beginning. The texts there are more structured than normal, so you can get functional quickly without being conversational.

Moving there is the best thing that happened to me. Don't let the language discourage you from going anywhere. You'll struggle, and overcome.

Go to a graduation ceremony at a top school (note: it's delayed 1-2 years after graduation) and you'll learn that the top 10% have ALL left the country, no exception.

(I'm talking about the top in terms of technical abilities, entrepreneurship and/or skills that are valuable to execute , not necessarily school grades).

There's been a lot of nice french initiatives to promote tech, in the last few years. It's still hard to overcome the anglosphere bias and to promote internationally, but from the inside it's still a nice atmosphere.

When the Prime Minister was asked what this means, she replied with "Brexit means Brexit." http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36782922

When people have asked specific questions like "am I going to be able to continue to live here?" or "am I going to continue to receive scientific funding that is distributed by the EU?" or "how is this going to affect my business?", they haven't recieved answers.

In the words of Douglas Adams, "This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."

I don't think that's a proper topic for HN though.

Anyway, most of the tech jobs in France are in the IT service industry, but if you want an attractive salary you need to go to join a software company with a product.

So now you can get a pretty good salary in France as a software engineer, and while it's still lower as a number than in North America if you factor in the social system and the work/life balance it's not a bad deal at all. Just don't go to the service industry.

Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Citadel, and one thousand small tech and finance firms in London.

The only decent company in Paris is Criteo. And you better have worked abroad at Google, Facebook then Goldman Sachs if you want a chance to be interviewed there.

> M. Pierre Lellouche ... told the National Assembly. “They deliberately use the argument of public freedoms to make money knowing full well that the encryption used to[sic] drug traffickers, to serious [criminals] and especially to terrorists. It is unacceptable that the state loses any control over encryption..."

And whether or not it is supposed to "only apply to terrorism acts", there's no cryptographic algorithm that has a case for "secure unless the government is investigating an act of terrorism".

The point is that French law requires applications to be designed in such a way that key disclosure will allow customer data to be extracted. Signal, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Apple iMessage, and other end-to-end apps would be illegal.

If a French employer tells you they'll pay you 100k€ annually (just for the sake of the example), you can expect to receive 75k€. (25%, mostly for your retirement plan, social security and unemployment insurance. Mandatory)

Then, if you input those 75k in this tool, it will tell you what you can expect to pay as income taxes. In the case of 75k, 17 218€.

The schools are good, but they are also going to be very hard on your kids unless they are very young. Homework volume is high, and my own cynical view is that at least part of it is training kids for the experience of dealing with the difficulties of filling out lots of paperwork and dealing with the French civil service.

Source: Worked for two years in a French overseas territory.

The indigent and extremely poor have special programs whereby they are exempted from this. *You can buy additional insurance that will increase the coverage to 100% and/or remove the need to pre-pay. That comes with the tradeoff of having to use the provider network that the insurance company has (a la US healthcare).

  Why do you think they're trying to market to an English speaking audience?

> French is the national language

And what is the national language of Ireland?

I got ripped off at the first two startups I worked for but learned my lessons.

Don't be busy, create obvious value along the actual company line.

You're most likely not working for the founders, it's really the stakeholders and at least some of these have money. Make sure the money is found for your salary (believe me they find the money for the lawyers).

Be prepared to move if necessary.

It's an uneasy compromise at first, but eventually it becomes clear the best interest is not having the best employees constantly flirting with a healthy stream of recruiters.

You are contradicting your own point. A startup with zero profit can still be taxed at a very high rate and pay almost zero taxes simply because there is no profit to be taxed. But the rule would still apply in this case.

The government and the administration is trying to improve the climate on founders/visa/startups/tech, and yes, it's far from being perfect and there are a lot of pieces missing and a lot that could be improved, but, at least, they seem to be trying.

And then you come, and just tell people they should go somewhere else "because it will be too hard".

So, I'm all for warning that it won't be all pink and easy, but I don't think it ought to be as hard as you seem to imply.

One thing which is definitely true is learning a few words and know how to say "Hi" in French and that you don't know the language will go a long way.

After, that, if you feel like you want to stay in the country, you will naturally go towards learning the language anyway.

I lived 7 years in the Netherlands, and you can go mostly fine with just English (even though, in some more rural areas, it can still be hard despite the reputation of the country), but learning Dutch helped me integrate and "unlock" situations where English would not have been enough, just because it showed to the people involved I was willing to integrate better in the country and make efforts to be understood.

They won't communicate in French either. They bark at you. And you bark at them. Whoever barks the louder wins.

I was in Berlin, and I was never spoken to in German (since I don't really look German), and I would ask the person if they spoke English just to be polite before I started speaking to them, and they would almost get offended. Actually, I hardly heard any German being spoken.

On the contrary, in Warsaw I had problems getting basic directions in English even if I asked young people on the street. They were either self-conscious or didn't know English, but either way they wouldn't speak to me in English. When I went to mini-markets and places where you'd find less educated people at the cash register, absolutely zero. Not even "bag".

It's pretty doable in Sweden, too. In Japan, Russia or Argentina, though, you'd be at an enormous disadvantage.

Getting a self-employed VISA is not easy unless you have some serious credentials. My partner has three degrees, two post-graduate, from highly regarded US universities; an extensive profile of speaking engagements; a very, very solid financial standing; and a solid business plan. The IHK (who reviews all business plans for self-employed applications) still said "No" but begrudgingly gave the green-light when presented with a book contract from a well known technical publisher.

I have no degrees, but a financially viable consulting business of some years, and a lengthy professional background. Three years later, over 12 foreigners office appointments, a UG (affectionately known as the mini-GmbH) with over 12K founding capital, a high-priced lawyer, over a 120K in USDEUR transfers, and a visit from the police to confiscate my passport over Christmas, my self-employment visa is no further along than the day I first submitted it.

Still, incomparably better than US immigrations. I'm certainly stuck in some weird, exceptional state that has confused even my lawyer.

Consider Berlin. It is wonderful here, definitely. Rents are rising, however, and (sadly, in my opinion) you do not need to learn German. I know of far too many people who have spent numerous years here without speaking more than a phrase or two of deutsche.

If you want to start a company/be self-employed DO NOT follow the (typische amerikanische) DIY process. Factor in costs for tax advisers and lawyers.

Uruguay for some reason is home to one of the more active development communities. But as far as visas I think you need one of those retirement visas or something.

Panama might be the easiest to get into, register companies etc. althought that technically is Central America. All in all, even in places like Venezuela with its crazy economy but that happens to be extremely favorable for service export, you will find good opportunities for startups due to extreme low cost of living, good university networks and general lack of competition and innovation. Internet speed leave a lot to be desired but it is workable. Electricity prices in some of this countries is way cheaper so that lends itself well to datacenters. Of course, those savings will need to cover stuff like private security, which is kind of a necessity.

25 years of economic stagnation, low innovation, increasing marginalization of France as a consequential economy in the global order (they've been sinking down the list for 40 years), perpetual high unemployment, and a GDP per capita that has failed to keep up to such a dramatic degree that it needs to climb 70% to catch the US.

With results like those, the tax payers are clearly not getting a good return on their non-free education system.

Is there even an incentive to work? What are the unemployment benefits?