Horrible for the free market, imo.

Probably not, since it encourages companies to actually invest in people that they can't just fire at will. Society comes out on top, and business is kept accountable for how they treat human beings. The free market with at will employment is a race to the bottom. France's model is more of a steady march to the top.

> France's model is more of a steady march to the top

Eagerly awaiting for France to have their own equivalents (in terms of success and worldwide influence) of Google/Apple/Microsoft/Amazon/SpaceX/Tesla/etc. As well as for their devs to be paid even remotely close to what they can get paid in the US.

From what I am seeing, even "the year of Linux on desktop" is more likely to happen than that. Which doesn't inspire much confidence.

> As well as for their devs to be paid even remotely close to what they can get paid in the US.

Perhaps the French would see that as a failure, not a success.

I mean, if they consider being successful and being paid more as a failure, then yeah, I can totally see their "steady march to the top" succeeding.

Not sure if that warrants a celebration. But if they consider it as such, then who am I to disagree.

The French might ask why turning the like button into several different kinds of reaction is so much more "successful" than the baker who makes a perfect croissant.

Perhaps it's OK for a society to be... OK, instead of "the top", especially if top comes with a correspondingly distant bottom. Perhaps in 50 years we'll not see some of Google/Apple/Microsoft/Amazon/SpaceX/Tesla/etc. as quite so positive of achievements.

I fully agree thay it is absolutely OK for a society to be OK instead of "the top". That's a choice I can respect, as being at "the top" can come with its set of downsides that the society there might not want to accept. In fact, it might indeed be better to not be "at the top".

However, I was disputing it in the context of the claim that "France model is leading them steadily on the way to the top". To the top of what? To the top of being OK? That's a very questionable definition of "the top".

Meanwhile, sure, you can argue that some of "Google/Apple/Microsoft/Amazon/SpaceX/Tesla/etc." might end up not so positive of achievements in 50 years, but a lot of them quite are. Tesla, a non-european car brand, is one of the most registered new vehicles in quite a few european countries now, and I consider it a positive thing in comparison to ICE vehicles made in europe like bmw/audi/etc. SpaceX with its recent Falcon9-Heavy launch is quite positive. Which search engine do french people use? I bet it is Google. Which OS and office productivity suite does the majority of France currently run? I bet it is Windows with MS Office. Where are the majority of the websites and services that most people use are hosted? Most likely they are hosted at AWS.

Again, I dont subscribe to the notion that one has to be "at the top" in a bunch of arbitrary metrics to lead a great life, and it applies to both individuals and countries. However, I still disagree with the notion that France is anywhere on "the steady way to the top" when it comes to any of those metrics, as I see zero evidence to that.

You seem to confuse "the top" with "having the highest paying jobs at companies that active make either the planet, society, or both, worse"? Drawing a seven figure salary while you're enabling some of the worst abuses of power and the centralisation of digital control on the planet really isn't doing it right. That's "fucking it up" and then going "buy my paycheque! More money means I'm better!" when someone calls that out. No, US, you're not a better person because your salary is higher, and your company is not better because it controls a bigger part of the world.