Comment by yodsanklai | Hacker News Reader

Comment by yodsanklai | Hacker News Reader

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Exactly. I've worked both in France and the US. My salary was indeed double in the US. But with everything factored in, it was not really different salary-wise. Also, I have much more free time in France which is very important for me. I really loved the US for the whole living abroad experience and would go back in a heartbeat for this reason, but my quality of life is better in France (not in Paris though). EDIT: (I also didn't have to pay anything for my education.) I'm a bit tired of those articles that announce a brain drain because France is supposedly so unfriendly to talented people or entrepreneurs. We live in a global world now and it would be a shame not to experience living in other countries. Doesn't mean that France is doomed to bankrupt because our economy isn't as liberal as it is in the US for instance.

I don't know about 'unfriendly' but these appear to be the numbers:

"The French consulate in London estimates between 300,000 and 400,000 French citizens live in the British capital" which compares to city populations as follows:

    Paris - 2.3m
    Marseille - 859,000
    Lyon - 488,000
    Toulouse - 447,000
    Nice - 344,000

whereas "20,500 of the 135,000 expat Brits in the country live in or close to Paris".

The 2011 Census showed that there were 66,654 Londoners born in France. The numbers from the consulate were completely made up.

Those numbers don't prove anything except that London is more appealing or open to the French than Paris to the Brits. Doesn't mean that France most skillful workers and entrepreneurs are persecuted and they feel the urge to flee their country. There are many things that could explain this disparity.

Maybe it's because Brits have much more trouble to learn French than French have to learn English.

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