France - British Expat Forum

A couple of years ago I was investigating the possibility of setting up a website design buisness in France. I did a bit of research and came to the conclusion that I could never cope with the beurocratic hell of starting up there. I started to explore other possibilities such as Belgium, as I had read it was much easier there. However, recently, I saw a news article online that said that the french government had introduced laws simplifying the process of investing in france. I would like to know if anyone else knows anything about this, and whether it really will make a big difference in cutting red tape for self-employed foreigners.

I'm British and therefore an eu citizen, and I don't intend to employ anyone in the near future, just start up as a self-employed person. Any advice you can give would be much appreciated.

There is a much easier way to the old alternatives. Using a 'Portage' means you have virtually no admin', same status as an 'employee' (so you can protect any benefit entitlement) and social charges are PAYE so you don't have any huge unexpected bills - it's very often used for new businesses to test the water. I use [Advert removed by Site Admin] and I'm very happy with the service.

To help people find services without directly advertising a specific provider, give them a search string to use in Google, Yahoo, etc. In cases like this, you need to stop the searchengine from returning the common English meaning, so use 'portage salarial'. Several of the resulting links have English language versions of their pages.