5. I did not say it is impossible to fire someone, I said you have to go in great lengths to do so, and you may end up in court as well to justify your actions. This happens more often than not in France. You know the "Prud'hommes", right ?
6. I mentioned high profile startups in the first place. Not used at international level. My aim was to show that there were very few local competitors in France to the Internet giants. Baidu is a clear competitor of Google in China (and larger than Google, anyway). Gree is the number 1 provider of online games in Japan. I could also mention Mixi, a social network in Japan at least as big as Facebook in the country, if not more (while I am not aware of the latest share).
For the other points, I did not answer because I was writing from my phone and could not spend time to answer everything. Anyway, it should be obvious that in France, the PME (small and medium companies) sector is minimal compared to other developped countries. Startup belong in that field, and it is clear that if the climate for small companies was more favorable, there would be more of them. Hence my claim "not the best place to fund a startup" in my original post.
There are probably worse places than France, but clearly better choices outside as well, that's why you have a "fuite des cerveaux" going on for several years: those who are ambitious do not want to deal with useless administrative obstacles. They want to focus on their business, full time.
