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1. The chief problem with government sponsored startups is - the government is terrible at allocating funds. A scrappy startup with a disruptive plan will not get any funding. A startup with a well presented plan (but entering into a crowded space) will get more funding. If you want to hire engineers, you'll be competing with the government, who can pay more than a small startup, but puts them on useless projects.

2. France ranks 29 on doing business, and 25 on starting a business. Not ideal, but not bad. It takes about a week, in total, if you know your stuff. I don't know much about it, because it's all in French. C'est la vie. http://www.doingbusiness.org/rankings.

3. Total tax rate is high. Labor tax is outstandingly high. But salaries are kind of low (because high taxes = low wages).

4. No idea. All countries have talent. You might struggle for people with lots of web startup experience.

5. France's labor law looks a little scary.

6. Yeah.

Overall, the problems are that the government sucks all the good people into its inefficient investments, and that French labor law is more suited to large companies. Its health system is an advantage over the US, for SMEs though - everyone pays about the same amount (through somewhat high income taxes - which is really the employee's problem).

I'm a fan of safety nets, but not of officious labor law.

5. its not about not liking the employee. its about having a financial need to downsize. Lets say you are a consultancy working with a big client that takes lots of hours and several employees. If this big client decides to close the contract you might not be able to bring enough new projects in time to cover. At some stage you will have to fire people or your whole company goes under.

1. The difference with the US is that you also have a lot of powerful private investors you can approach. In France, its all government money and almost nothing else. My point is valid in that regard.

5. That does not solve the problem of flexibility of hiring and firing. If the context becomes unfavorable and your company bleeds money, you will not be able to get rid of some of your workforce easily, so your business will bleed even faster. Its as simple as that, and its not like startups face no competition huh?

6. Totally disagree. Baidu in China. Gree in Japan. I can find other examples if needed.

1. There are also private investors in France ... Are there less than in the US ? Yes for sure, but saying there is none is totally wrong (and I can give you example if necessary).

5. Protection against firing at will is different than not being able to fire at all. It happens everyday, and no, it does not always end up in court.

6. I have no clue what Gree is. Baidu is famous yes, but have you ever used it ? I haven't. It's used exclusively in China.

For the other points, I'm happy to see you didn't find anything to say.

My point is not that some things could nto be better done in France, just that there is a lot of half truth (that's an understatement) lying around.

1. since when "almost nothing" = none ? I never said there was none. There are very few, and I would be very surprised if they are not linked to government agencies somehow. Feel free to provide examples, and also in what projects they invested in. That would be interesting.

5. I did not say it is impossible to fire someone, I said you have to go in great lengths to do so, and you may end up in court as well to justify your actions. This happens more often than not in France. You know the "Prud'hommes", right ?

6. I mentioned high profile startups in the first place. Not used at international level. My aim was to show that there were very few local competitors in France to the Internet giants. Baidu is a clear competitor of Google in China (and larger than Google, anyway). Gree is the number 1 provider of online games in Japan. I could also mention Mixi, a social network in Japan at least as big as Facebook in the country, if not more (while I am not aware of the latest share).

For the other points, I did not answer because I was writing from my phone and could not spend time to answer everything. Anyway, it should be obvious that in France, the PME (small and medium companies) sector is minimal compared to other developped countries. Startup belong in that field, and it is clear that if the climate for small companies was more favorable, there would be more of them. Hence my claim "not the best place to fund a startup" in my original post.

There are probably worse places than France, but clearly better choices outside as well, that's why you have a "fuite des cerveaux" going on for several years: those who are ambitious do not want to deal with useless administrative obstacles. They want to focus on their business, full time.

You want an example : here is one : http://owlient.eu/

They got venture capital by Innovacom (not a government agency) and then just got bought by Ubisoft (not a government company).

As for big startups known in France (and not necessarily internationally), well, Meetic is one of them for instance. Or vente-privee.com. I guess you could even put OVH in there.

Chinese startups do well in China because they don't get blocked (as they either have "connections", or just know the rules better), and Chinese is hard for most people to work with.

The same could be said about Japan (while government connections are certainly more critical in China, I reckon). But Google has been pretty successful in Japan, for example. They are now market leaders in search here, whereas it used to be Yahoo Japan still a few years ago (note that Yahoo Japan was a different company than the global Yahoo - they operate separately and are purely local).

> 2. I'd argue that it'll take a long time to set up a company anywhere when you don't know the customs of the country. Of course, language is an additional barrier, but I'm pretty sure I'd manage to set up a startup quickier in France than in the US, just because I'm French. Same for you in your own country. Big deal.

No, that's objectively false:

http://www.doingbusiness.org/rankings

France isn't that bad, but it's not as good as it could be.

Of course, some things could be improved.

more actual data, anyone? http://hackfwd.tumblr.com/post/17652295684/europe-embraces-e...

#1 was great. This is a joke right? You do know the US Treasury is the safest financial instrument in the known universe, right? I'm sure you also know that French debt is denominated in Euros a currency which may or may not exist in 10 years... Also, even if it does exist they don't fully control the currency.....you know what? this isn't worth debating. This is like a comic performance.

A long time ago, the French decided that quality of life, and taking an easier path was simply more important than the economic, military, and to a lesser extent cultural dominance of the US. As a result, French people live generally better quality of life, but the very ambitious don't get as rewarded as in the US. You will find French of all stripes in the US who seek to live in the US because they can be rewarded more than in France.

It is a cultural choice. But let's not deny the effect.

In France you have 35 hour work-week, siesta, lots of vacations, health care, bloated government. But there is very little entrepreneur ism. The French fell in love with the large corporation and large government.