Well, there is already a special economic zone in that area: Monaco.

Don't think it's particularly startup-friendly though.

What happened to Sophia-Antipolis near Antibes? That area was spun out as "silicon valley of europe". No tax specialization AFAIK but it did have a dense concentration of tech companies at least two decades ago.

I just read a book about it from the co-creator of Siri, Luc Julia.

He spends a good part of the book complaining about french research, which does not care about products impact and thus is very theoretical, but also about the heavy hand of the government in dictating where innovation happens.

He also talks about Sophia-Antipolis. It started with a boom, and a lot of tax credits to incentivize corporations. But after the subvention dried up, many companies left. It seems to me that most of the companies left do not have innovation in their DNA.

Everywhere is "Silicon Valley of Europe". Silicon Saxony, Silicon Roundabout (London), Silicon Fen (Cambridge), Silicon Docks (Dublin), Silicon Glen, etc

It's still there, and growing.

On the other hand it's France, and the French are notorious for not wanting to speak English, while at the same time not many people from Europe speak French. Hard to build a truly European zone that way.

I think quite a lot of people can speak French, but have a similar stance against the French people, why would we speak French if you can't bother speaking differently language like English.

And further compounding the issue, in a specific part of France, they will give you shit for even trying to speak French. It doesn’t matter if you have good vocabulary and decent grammar / pronunciation, they still will refuse to speak to you or worse insult you for even trying. This certainly isn’t an issue in all of France, just one specific area that I’ll avoid naming to not offend folks from there.

Having been to most corners of France so far, I cannot confirm this. I can confirm so, that French have a tendency to not like speaking English at the very beginning of a conversation. They do appreciate so, if foreigners try speaking French. Some even all of a sudden can speak English.

I live in a bilingual city (english / french), and the french-speakers here that vacationed in France (n=3) all say that the French laughed at them when they tried speaking.

Yep, as I said, it’s a very specific part of France and not a “French” thing in general. Anecdata is anecdata, but I’ve had a lot of friends (some French, some not) agree that this is common in this specific place, so I know I’m not alone.

Currently in Paris as everything is centralized there but indeed, if the opportunity ever presented itself I would move to Nice in a heartbeat, the rest of the bigger cities (Marseilles, Montpellier) suffer a bad reputation though...

Still remember sleeping some nights on the beach in Nice, awesome days.

Marseille is not great, but Montpellier is awesome.

This. It is a stunningly beautiful city. It is also right by the Mediterranean.

Lisbon maybe getting there

I think Lisbon was on the radar a few years ago, but I get the impression it may have blown it. According to folk I know who were looking at it, they had issues with the 'work ethic' of locals (read into that what you will) and high tax.

what I read is when worker's lives arent threatened (by deprivation of health care) we make sensible decisions about balancing a commitment to an employer with our commitments to family and community.

I have no clue about Portugal, just wanted to point out these things are independent, e.g. in Norway/Denmark high productivity ("work ethic") while at the same time leaving the office on time and closing shops early. While Germany does not threat workers life but people stay too long in the office and shops are open to long - but it gets better.

Well Cloudflare has an office there, where their CTO is.

I don't know about start-ups, but I think Portugal in general is still growing in attraction for remote workers. Great climate, still cheap and beneficial tax laws.