EUROASHA

Hello All

I've been reading various topics and different forums about living in France. I would love to make the move, I have gotten to know a great part of the French Alps and love it up there.

I am too young to retire (for a retirement visa) and I need to work to survive and the only visa option for me as an Australian is to be self employed and have my own business. I doubt there is a business that would sponsor me in a small village in the alps.

My questions is regarding the French administration (taxes and social security). These seem to be peoples biggest gripes and biggest headaches. As a small business owner, is it really all that encompassing that you can not enjoy life and that these things become a noose around your neck?

Most people on the forums say don't go to France if you are self employed.

Is it all that negative and so scary.

thanks

Tweedpipe

Welcome to the forum!

Firstly you have omitted to give us one piece of essential information. How well do you speak French?
Even having been here many years (employment with a large multi-national), and with no problems understanding or conversing in French, I would not like to take that step into the unknown, and venture into the slippery situation of self employment.
From what I have heard, and especially read on this site, it would appear not so much a noose around the neck, but more a slowly descending guillotine.
Even for a very adventurous (read, crazy?) person, I would strongly advise putting off the idea until at least 2018. By then we should know if France is still spinning downwards or on the mend.
Others should be along shortly with personal experience re self employment.

dmu

Hi, and welcome to the forum!
Take a look in Chatterstatic's FAQs on moving to France in the above Read-Me. The thread on Starting a Business will give you a lot of info, presuming you speak French.
Someone more in the know will come along with specifics, but one "noose" consists of paying into the Health Insurance Fund even if there's no income coming in, not to mention all the never-ending bureaucracy involved.
You can set up a business structure anywhere. My "head office" was in my house in a rural village.
Is your French adequate enough to cope with the "scary" side of things? Such a venture isn't for the faint-hearted....
Good luck!

EuroTrash

Of course you can enjoy life and deal with French administration - IF you have the necessary skills.

It's incredible how many people who have no business skills or experience and have never fancied their chances of running a small business in their own country, seem to think that when they move to France they will suddenly, magically acquire those skills. I think they lose their grip on reality - maybe France seems so strange and unreal to them that they think anything is possible. But pigs don't fly, you can still only do what you're capable of doing. These are usually the people who can't cope and think therefore that it is impossible for anyone to cope.

Then there are people who have been running a successful business in their own country, and for them the challenge is to transfer those skills. They may need to tweak their business model and core skills, they will almost certainly need to revisit their pricing strategy to build in the higher cotisations, but the biggest challenge obviously is the business communication skills. They need to be able understand customers and market themselves persuasively, but more importantly, as has been said already, they need to understand the admin side and get to grips with a different set of rules. Although they have the basic business skills, not everybody has the language skills or the ability to adapt.

If you have neither the language skills nor the business nouse, trying to run a business here must be like trying to negotiate an obstacle course blindfold. Even the simplest obstacle course will trip you up if you can't see where you're going, because the only way you'll avoid the obstacles is by luck not judgement, and it must be stressful never knowing when you're going to walk smack into the next obstacle. But what exactly do you expect if you set off on an obstacle course wearing a blindfold?
Doing anything you are ill equipped to do can be scary and is likely to end up negative. If you have the skills, it's a challenge but if you're business-minded then you should quite enjoy it, and there is satisfaction to be gained.

For the record, I've been self employed in France for many years, I don't mind the admin and I enjoy life immensely.
Are you sure you can get a visa for self-employment? It seems unlikely to me, or it would essentially mean that anybody who really wanted a visa could get one, and there would be no restrictions on immigration. It doesn't sound quite in line with France's immigration policies or its economic agenda. But I'm no expert on visas.

cyrian

Hello Euroasha
I have no personal experience of working in France but I have spoken with a Frenchman who ran his own small company.
We discussed the problems of running a business in France.
He told me that if he was younger, he would consider moving to the UK or elsewhere because of the difficulty of running his business in France.
Also, another member on this forum has posted that he is wanting to return to the UK. After running his plumber's business in France for many years, the bureaucracy has defeated him.
From what I have read and observed, France seems to be very anti small business whereas the UK makes operating a small business relatively easy.
Running a business in France is not for the fainthearted.

EuroTrash

Quite - but he's looking at it from the point of view whose priority would be running a business. If you're looking at it from the point of view of somebody whose priority is to live in France, moving to the UK or elsewhere won't really do the trick will it

Moses2013

Well it is a stepping stone to get visa and then move to France later on, while using the time to learn French. It's also a lot easier and cheaper to reach France from the UK, compared to Australia.

cyrian

Yes, but the point is that even for a Frenchman, running a business in France is not a walk in the park.
I thought that the OP was looking to run a business in order to obtain a visa to live in France.
I was trying to indicate that what works (i.e. running a business) in your own country doesn't apply to running a business in France - not to mention the different language.

dmu

I understood from Cyrian's post that, if a native Frenchman says he wouldn't have continued his business in France if he were younger, it's a statement which is negative and scary for potential start-ups. A foreigner would really have to be motivated and able to cope with both aspects of running a French business, however much he wishes to live in France. One of the important factors being, is his French adequate?

EuroTrash

Would an Aussie get a visa to live in the UK on the basis of setting up as self-employed? I doubt it.

EuroTrash

He said it would be easier. I don't think anybody would disagree with that. But just because it's not as easy in France, that doesn't have to make it scary. Good grief dmu I'm no whizz at business, between you and me I'm disnumerate, so if I can do it then anybody can. If your French is up to it and you're prepared to knuckle down, put a bit of effort into figuring it out, keeping yourself up to date and doing what you have to do without kicking against it, there is nothing scary about it. AE is the simplest business setup you could wish for.

Moses2013

Just saying that there are still ways to eventually move to France and moving to the UK might be a way. Maybe not self employed, but the OP might have skills that are needed in the UK, or there might be other Visa options.

dmu

Neither/so am I, and I did, too! But last century, before the decline of the French economy, with the aid of an Expert-Comptable, an OH who encouraged me, and with +/- fluent French.
Maybe not scary in my case, but stressful in every department except for my actual work!
The OP might like to tell us what business he's in and we'll know whether the Auto-Entrepreneur structure would be suitable for him. Likewise whether his French is up to it....

EuroTrash

But you were pre-AE. AE was invented because the government finally realised that the other business structures are scary. So AE was specifically designed to be unscary. The rules on what to do, when to do it and how to do it are all spelled out and really quite simple, although they do keep changing so you have to stay "à cheval". But as long as you keep an eye out for changes it's not hard to keep on top of the admin, and if you're confident you've done everything you're supposed to, what's to stress about?

I'm not saying it's easy and I'm not saying it's for everybody. As I said in my first post - you need to have adequate skills, and preferably experience of being self-employed. Moving to a brand new country can be stressful, setting up your very first business venture (even in your native country) can be stressful, so doing both simultaneously will be double stressful. If you've already been self-employed, at least you will have a tried and tested business idea, you'll know how to set your fees and where to look for clients. Some people seem to think that all you have to do is register as an auto entrepreneur, and clients will start coming along and suggesting services that you might like to offer. No kidding, you sometimes see newbie posters on forums saying 'I'm registering as an auto entrepreneur and I need to choose a category to register in, which category should I choose?' Now, that is scary.

cyrian

I think that ET's post sums up the issues that everybody has been trying to get over.