Would love to also see a follow-up piece about getting a job in Paris
That being said, here are a few things to know:
1) France's unemployment rate is north of 10% (closer to 25% if you're under 25) and it's not for lack of companies. It's because large companies are essentially on a hiring freeze until the economy balances out, because employment comes with a lot of string attached (hard to fire, expensive to fire, high social taxes on top of employees).
2) Startup employees don't work 35 hours a week - I've never once seen this, and I'd be curious to meet teams who did. If you want to work at a public tech company, or Google France, you may work 35hours/week, just like you would at EA or Oracle in the US. The fact is that the 35 hour work week is a law to protect employees, but the 6-month trail period that precedes your 'protection' usually sets the tempo for work life. Those who can't handle working 45-50 hours a week, or at the pace set by the company, are usually kicked out with 24 hour noticed within the first 6 months.
3) Getting a job in Paris is easy, especially for an American. Your CV is "I'm an American" and any startup who's raised 1Million+ will be a fool not to take you. So, if you're looking for a job in Paris, just tweet it, and you'll have a job offer by the end of the day. If you're a little less technical, Law/accountign firms hire international people with VISAs all the time to cover their intl. clients.
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In Paris, nothing happens on that level. If you do want to come to Paris it's because of the amazing food, lifestyle, public transportation system, and certainly not because of the amazing startups we should have.
I don't know any developer in Paris that do a 35 hours week. Actually it's even the contrary, French managers have a strong culture of evaluating employees performance based on presence. So you see a lot of peoples doing 10-12 hours a day, or coming back to the office on saturday.
It's still better than the US, "cadre" status (but not top management) is officially around 180-190 day of work per year (depending on the unions).
In SF, it's often necessary and hardly ever sufficient.
+1.
I think it's a core deep cultural issue about France. The whole system is completely corrupted, people are used to get "passe-droit" (not sure about the translation) for anything, and even the top Political leaders are acting this way. Politician asking cops not to be fined for something illegal they just did, a friend of a friend asking the School President to let their kid attend their school, etc.
The whole French society is based on this. Many say it's a Monarchy, and not a Republic.