> Does France have anything to compete with that, other than better food?

Are our pig intestine based 4000 kcal per serving culinary offerings not good enough for your palate?

Warmer beaches, fantastic skiing and mountain sports...

And the food is quite a big factor. :-)

It's four years renewable for the residence permit, but really the important thing is to have a work contract. You get the residence permit because of the work contract. So if you still have a work contract after four years, you would just apply for another residence permit. You can have a work contract that has no expiration (no fixed duration).

Yes, but with my permanent residence permit I can take a year off to write poetry (if I could afford it) then come back and take a part-time job in a cafe or be a freelancer, and nothing would happen to my status.

I'm not arguing that it's better to live in Germany than in France, that depends on way too many variables (not just the food of course). But it would be nice to see more competition. Maybe if other EU countries really started beating Germany for tech talent acquisition, Germany might finally wake up and allow dual citizenship. (Wishful thinking on my part.)