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Comment by docdeek | Hacker News Reader

The idea that the Foundation wouldn’t be able to find English language services in France is a bit of a stretch. I’ve been working in tech here in France for a while now and whether in startups, tech companies, or independently, I’ve never had any trouble conducting business almost entirely in English if I (as the customer) preferred to.

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I had a small tech business in Southern France and without the help of a native french speaker it would have been impossible to navigate the Kafkaesque french bureaucracy.

> the Kafkaesque french bureaucracy.

I think that's key.

One really needs an imperative reason to move a business from the UK to France considering how much more business-friendly and, well, sensible, the UK is.

I don't feel France is nearly as business unfriendly as people like to pretend. At least not anymore. It's just an undying trope.

It does not die because there's still truth in it. Bureaucracy is still Kafkaesque for a start. I have been dealing with both British and French administrations extensively and I can tell you it's night and day.

I can't speak for Britain but a lot of administrative services in France are digital now. I'm rarely trapped in bureaucratic nonsense like I would have been say ten years ago. Most services you'd require on any given day (taxes, welfare, unemployment office, healthcare, ID registration, voting registration, starting a basic corporate structure) are trivially available.

The biggest problem now is discoverability as government programs are still habitually arcane and UI/UX grammar. Some countries, I'm thinking especially of Germany, have national standards that make services appear uniform whereas in France every administration is still its own little shop.

As someone who's trying to renew his passport: Services have partially moved online (still have to attend in person...) but they still are bureaucratic nonsense, indeed.

Bureaucracy is Kafkaesque because of the complicated and seemingly random rules, because of the abundance of taxes, etc. There really needs to be a drastic reset of everything.

A good example: The attestation people had to print and fill in if they wanted to leave home during the lockdown. Why? This is bonkers even if it eventually became digital.

Another good example: Starting a business. I don't know if it can be simpler and faster than the way it works in the UK. In France, on the other hand...

As a Francophile Brit that grew up in France, and with the greatest of respect, you are French. It's a totally different story if you are not French. The bureucracy is horrific, even today. My parents have lived there for 30 years, both are fully integrated into the community, and they still face bureuctratic issues and delays, even digitally because they are not French. I'm not suggesting in any way that France is a particulaly xenophobic nation - us Brits have that sewn up, sadly - but the system is very xenophobic in my long experience.

> I'm not suggesting in any way that France is a particulaly xenophobic nation - us Brits have that sewn up, sadly

Simply not true.

English isn't an official language in France. That probably isn't an issue for large companies, but it is a non-starter for small companies.

English is an official language in the EU only in Ireland and Malta though, so if Ireland is out and English is a requirement, it shouldn't be difficult to decide which country to move to.

As someone who has done business on Malta I would not recommend it. Even opening a bank account is a pain on that island. I wouls not want to operate a nob-profit there.

Completely agree. I have run a company in Malta since 2014 and the banking difficulties are non-stop. I would never open a new company there today.

Expect bank accounts in other countries (like Revolut, Transferwise etc) to be closed suddenly because "Malta".

The EU is in an unfortunate situation due to 1.3 billion people speaking English, but also due to member states being too slow in making their governments fully digital. Speaking from experience, it is easier to set up and run a British limited company remotely from Prague than doing so with a Czech company from its own capital.

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