this is a very interesting comment.  we had a discussion re: entrepreneurship and small business in France about a year ago.  i had been involved in starting a joint venture between a US and French company, and found the regulations bureaucratic and cumbersome.  In discussion on this, most of the other europeans on the site, mainly the French commented I believe, felt that the situation was not difficult in France.  and in fact that there were a lot of small company start-ups.  your experience seems to be very contrary to that.

I hope others on this site that argued that position will comment.