I would imagine it means a cultural and legal infrastructure lending itself to entrepreneurship. As a US citizen it's easy to take this for granted

> what does "startup nation" even mean?

A nation where startups can succeed?

many fuzzy things wrapped in a taco:

- having a French silicon valley (I believe attempts have been done before but failed)

- jump on the wave of smart iot app fad

- leverage the previous thing for (probably super bad) software education

- Macron seems to be in the self-made man (with state support if you're positive minded) so reviving a liberal entrepreneurship model fits his views

ps: also it doesn't seem to have any major factual impact (they may have helped a bunch of people but I didn't hear about anything groundbreaking); annnnd the disrupt startup motto is not well received nowadays, Uber -> Uberization... gig economy .. it didn't catch on really (for good reasons IMO)

Translates to "slow erosion of labour rights".

'what does "startup nation" even mean?' It's aspirational happy talk to disguise a bureaucratic log jam reality, calculated to appease the voting public's economic frustration and keep up a posture of being 'business friendly'. In reality the politicians are bought and paid for by big global businesses who don't need any competition...

Escape the Brexit. Many EU startup gone to London for some reason.

Israel is an example of a “startup nation”.

Edit: Downvotes!? Israel has the most startups per capita of any nation. Look it up, not doing homework for you.

It means a bunch of tiny firms that mostly fail.