I would imagine it means a cultural and legal infrastructure lending itself to entrepreneurship. As a US citizen it's easy to take this for granted

> what does "startup nation" even mean?

A nation where startups can succeed?

It's more, managing a nation like a startup

many fuzzy things wrapped in a taco:

- having a French silicon valley (I believe attempts have been done before but failed)

- jump on the wave of smart iot app fad

- leverage the previous thing for (probably super bad) software education

- Macron seems to be in the self-made man (with state support if you're positive minded) so reviving a liberal entrepreneurship model fits his views

ps: also it doesn't seem to have any major factual impact (they may have helped a bunch of people but I didn't hear about anything groundbreaking); annnnd the disrupt startup motto is not well received nowadays, Uber -> Uberization... gig economy .. it didn't catch on really (for good reasons IMO)

Translates to "slow erosion of labour rights".

'what does "startup nation" even mean?' It's aspirational happy talk to disguise a bureaucratic log jam reality, calculated to appease the voting public's economic frustration and keep up a posture of being 'business friendly'. In reality the politicians are bought and paid for by big global businesses who don't need any competition...

Escape the Brexit. Many EU startup gone to London for some reason.

It's extremely easy to register a company in the UK, probably even easier than in the USA.

You just fill in this web form and pay £12: https://www.gov.uk/limited-company-formation/register-your-c...

Israel is an example of a “startup nation”.

Edit: Downvotes!? Israel has the most startups per capita of any nation. Look it up, not doing homework for you.

Israel has so many start-ups and so much VC, solely because of the vast capital investment flows from the US. That's hardly a reasonable example for a large nation like France to work from.

It'd be like pretending Ireland's $70,000 GDP per capita is organic, rather than the result of US corporate giants using it as a tax device.

You are getting downvoted because you didn't answer the question. What are the qualities of being a "startup nation", other than simply having the most startups in the world, which is likely not what Macron meant.

It means a bunch of tiny firms that mostly fail.

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I flagged you because I am seriously sick of seeing questions get answered by pure concentrated sarcasm. You don't even attempt to be helpful here.

There's a middle ground between "worker abuse" and "useless bureaucracy". France is closer to the latter right now (I'm french, I've got experience setting up companies both in the US and in France).

This is because:

1. Many systems aren't properly automated and/or don't know how to communicate between each other. So you have to deal with extra paperwork when not necessary. Go in-person somewhere that isn't even necessarily the city you live in, you have to plan ahead for these things. Fax or snail-mail things where email would be sufficient. Etc.

2. Complying with european laws isn't always easy. You sometimes have to deal with slightly-different versions of certain laws, regulations, etc for no good reason. This is what the EU is supposed to fix, and the EU helps but it doesn't always work.

3. Complying with VAT is super hard for the same reasons. This is being worked on in 2018 and 2019. It should be getting easier soon.

4. There's less tooling, documentation, and marketing around creating startups in France. If you're in the EU you'll be tempted to do it in Ireland for tax reasons. Otherwise you'll end up in Delaware. This isn't even because it's necessarily a good idea for your case, but simply because everyone else is doing it.

But, you know, your helpful cynicism too.