by wchurchill
Mon May 7th, 2007 at 05:35:21 PM EST
We have had an off and on discussion of the difficulties of small business in France for 1 1/2 years. I related my experience in starting a small joint venture in France, and the difficulties we had with the bureaucracy and with letting go employees who were not performing.
Arguments have been made that France has an incredible number of small businesses started every year; people who are not performing can be fired rather easily, you just have to treat them fairly, follow the paper work, and they can be fired. There has also been an admission that the burearucracy for small business needs to be improved.
I have interpretted the argument that I've presented, and that has been supported by some others, is that there is a real problem for small business in France. (Particularly in comparison to the US where you only have to look at the stock pages to see an abundance of successful start-ups--big names being companies like Apple, Microsoft, Google, Intel, Guidant, Boston Scientific). I've interpretted the other side to be, while bureaucracy can indeed be improved for small business in France, it's really not that big of a problem.
Well I would say that 82% of small business owners would seem to agree there is a problem, and are looking for the improvements that Sarko seems to offer, as opposed to the continuation of labor and union policies Royal seemed to offer. From an article by JAMEY KEATEN
© 2007 The Associated Press in the Houston Chronicle:
Sarkozy cruised in his traditional electoral base: 82 percent of small business owners, and 67 percent of farmers voted for him, according to Ipsos. Befitting a conservative, he won 61 percent of votes by those over age 61, and 68 percent among voters 70 or older.
I guess the question is will Sarko really have a mandate to do this, because I would imagine there are some very strong opponents to the changes that would be required.
