Boinblog | Ramblings from a french entrepreneur

Setting up a startup in France, until recently, was a bit like gardening in the desert, but recently, things got worse, it’s a bit like… How can I tell you… Selling porn in Afghanistan… Dangerous.

In France, like in Germany, many startups are me-too projects, simple cut-n-paste from successful US ventures. Recently, two got into serious troubles with the french legal system, who has’nt any knowledge about what the Internet (1.0 or 2.0) is all about, and does’nt really care to learn.

The first problem occurred with a popurl me-too, LesPipoles.com, a content aggregator focusing on celebrity gossips. Basically, it republish rss feeds syndicated from other news websites and pictures coming from Flickr. Recently, it has been sentenced to quite a huge fine (considering it does’nt really make any money - yet) by a local judge because of a syndicated content displayed on the website, gossiping about an affair between a famous American sex symbol and a less famous French director… (since this website is located in France, I’m not gonna tell you anything about it, sorry, no free speech here)

The website’s lawyer tried to explain to the judge the concept of aggregation, told him that the website was’nt responsible for the content, but it was useless…

The second is much more famous (in France). Note2be is a website where students can rate their teachers. Another me-too. But the teachers in France are very, very conservative, and they unions when to war with the website. Yesterday, a judge sentenced the website to the deadpool… Similar websites are live in Germany, England… nearly everywhere in Europe… But in France, legally, that’s not possible (sorry again, no free speech here).

Launching a startup in France today is just foolish, it’s asking for trouble. France is definitely a hostile environment, but as a french citizen, you can cross the border and freely setup a company anywhere else in Europe, French citizenship and European citizenship are pretty much the same thing… So why bother ? Spain is next door and Internet is hot over there, England is a two hours train trip from Paris, Amsterdam is 3 hours away… If you’re still thinking about France and the Internet, think again, you might run into serious legal hazard, not mentioning the almost total lack of funding and the extinction of business angels, repelled by local taxes, a small linguistic market, and a ridiculous Internet penetration rate, barely above 50% (Germany is low at 65%, UK is nearly 70%, Netherland are close to 80%).

Today’s message, coming from the french legal system to startups is pretty clear: get lost!