In theory, having that much skin in the game sounds like a pro with small cons. The reality is that is kills innovation, leaves the few brave enough who fail indebted and hampered for years, and makes the successful a fraction of the scale (and disproportionately founded by those already rich).
The profile of the person founding them would be different. You'd have istrionic risk takers, borderline gamblers carrying the company for the first say 5 years, then they'd be bought out and a more stable person would be brought in.
The VC model enables the economy at large to artificially skip the first step. It's artificial because Silicon Valley companies which basically start from zero and arrive in the S&P500 in 20 years or less, they have very low turnover in managment and executives.
It's like a Vietcong learning how to fly an F-35.
Most founders aren’t taking a risk (they tend to come from wealthy families) they are executing a vision.
I’d bet the median return on startups is negative.
As long as the US side doesn't seek to brush over the failures by attempting to focus people's attention on the successes. And also as long as we have a fair definition of "success" .... an exit strategy that comprises being able to hype up a blatantly overvalued IPO is not "success", for example.
Let's face it there have been some quite spectacular failures in the US in recent years. As well as many more less spectacular that have burnt through millions of dollars in cash before calling it quits.
All that glitters is not gold. The US has a mentality of "throwing more money at the problem", but that does leave you in an environment where larger and larger burn rates become acceptable.
Putting the French specific comment to one side because I don't have sufficient knowledge to comment, what I would say is that having "skin in the game" is no bad thing (it focuses your mind, and demonstrates your commitment to others).
That's one of the problems with the US funding scene.
On one side its great because people will throw obscene amounts of money at you if your marketing pitch sells well enough.
One the other hand, it does lead to the situation where your commitment to the business only goes so far because you've basically always got someone else picking up the tab.