E.g. for Polytechnique : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_%C3%89cole_Polytechniq...
Cost of living is pretty high (still less than London but the gap narrowed in the past few years). Count €1000+ if you want to live in a comfy flat in the inner city, which you do if you want to have reasonable commute duration, and enjoy the nightlife/culture.
I've been living in Paris for 3 years now, and before I lived almost a year in Boston, 6 month in Berlin and several month in London. Paris is really close to London on many topics (cost of living, commute time, nightlife, cultural events) but the quality of life is way better (weather, food) and Paris as a city is really beautiful. Berlin is really different from Paris, but really enjoyable also ! But eastern Germany's economy is still lagging far behind overall Germany and Berlin's job market is quite poor.
The biggest problem I have with Paris is the real estate, renting a flat is expensive but not extreme, but as soon as you want to buy something, it becomes crazy.
*salaries are usually counted before taxes. With a €40k salary, you'll earn around €28k after all taxes.
To me the real problem with housing in Paris is, landlords request to see 2 years of tax sheet. When coming back from Australia, I just decided it would be too hard for me to find housing in Paris, and created my startup in Lyon.
Landlords are insane in Paris ! I had a friend who made 48k in his first job, he came from Grenoble and his parents weren't rich enough to "vouch" for him, so he spent almost a month before finding a flat, because landlords rejected him all the time, despite his salary.
With a diploma from a good engineering school and a previous work experience (internship and/or apprenticeship) the companies I talked about in [1] will pay you above 40k when coming out of school. With the two financial companies in the beginning being above 45k.
The main problem I see with developer employment in Paris, is the weight of the diploma in the remuneration. People with a university degree being offered around 30k most of the time.
I got a lot of interesting offers in Berlin, for what it's worth. And I expect that Berlin is a lot more agreeable to live in.
You will have huge trouble because you don't speak French.
You will have huge trouble for all administrative stuff. Like, it's hell to rent a flat even if you could pay 12 months in advance, because there isn't any AND the agencies will reject you because you don't have a history in France nor French parents with income to "vouch" for you.
Most importantly. There are no good jobs. The startup ecosystem is a joke and there is no Google/Facebook/Apple/Uber/AirBnb to work for.
And finally, the quality of living is mediocre, at best.
2. that's absolutely right, but working in Germany without speaking German wasn't really a good experience of mine either.
3. that's cute. Administrations are horrible everywhere, and it's even worst if it's not your country because you don't know what “everybody knows”.
4. Google is in Paris, but if you're looking for a good job, you probably don't want to work for Google anyways. (At least I don't, since I've had several bad feedbacks from both French or American offices)
5. this is highly subjective, I won't argue over this one.
2. Just meant to better consider staying or going to a country one speaks the language. No European countries speak or learn french, too badd ^^
3. There are variable levels of challenge. Some of which can be now circumvented with airbnb :D
4. Google ain't -really- in Paris. The first thing that comes up in the interview for frenchies is "that position only exists in Zurich or Dublin or London, do you have a preference?".
Don't be mean, Belgium and Switzerland are crying right now !
For app guys, just google Appsterdam if you want to know more...
I relocated from Paris to SF as a senior dev, and I am going back after 1 year. Yes I was making like 3x more in salary, but then housing in SF cost at least 2x more than in Paris, commute is just as bad, healthcare is a mess etc. And taxes are not that low :) - lower than in France, but you do not get much back, ie no healthcare, no retirement, not very good infrastructures etc. For me overall financially it is more interesting to go back.
Regarding jobs, I never had any problems to find interesting jobs in Paris, but I am working in embedded/low-level/networking/telcos systems, and I think Europe is skewed towards this kind of stuff whereas SV is skewed towards web/mobile.
To be honest I think it really depends of your lifestyle and priorities. I really enjoyed my year in SF, it is a beautiful city with great peoples, but I'll be happy to get back to Paris.
Honestly, my best advice for youngsters would be to leave the country for a few years. That's just the best option on the long term. They can come back to France, if they ever want to, and their experience will [hopefully] allow them to get interviews in the very few decent Parisian places.
I'm in distributed large scale systems. Not much of those in Paris I'm afraid ^^
The french have had dedicated engineering schools for a while, which are good, and most are very cheap (state sponsored).
There are many universities and they cover all topics (also state sponsored). Including law, finance, engineering, medicine, psychology, social sciences...
Some stuff (law/medicine) can only be done through a university (they're the only one to get the state-certificate to exercise the job). When it comes to engineering, universities offer it but the degrees are considered "shit-tier".
Note: They are not that bad per-se. They just get no considerations for old cultural reasons.
Working as a software engineer in Paris, and having most of my friends doing the same, I think your were juste living in a bubble.
Furthemore, french people don't go to university to study engineering, they go to engineering schools, which are dedicated structures. Some are public, generalist, and really famous (École Polytechnique where Fabrice Bellard comes from, École Centrale where VLC was created, École des Mines) but there are also a lot of smaller private and specialized school (Epitech, Efrei, Epita or “42” for computer sciences for instance).
In France, people mostly go to university to study law, medicine, social sciences or humanities.