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From Reporter Issue 96
START A COMPANY WITH JUST ONE EURO
...that’s what Jean-Pierre Raffarin says we’ll soon be able to do. Phil Heinlein has his doubts…
Okay, it sounds wonderful. As Alan Ranklin complains elsewhere,
going into business in France has meant setting off on a long trek
through a bureaucratic jungle. The upcoming changes are intended to
free the entrepreneurial spirit and allow a million new businesses to
open over the coming five years.
First of all, the capital requirement for setting up an
S.A.R.L., the commonest form of small business, has been slashed from
7500 euros to just one euro. This overlooks certain factors. To begin
with, whatever activity is undertaken, there aren’t just set-up costs.
On a day-to-day basis there are running expenses—everything from the
telephone bill to the cost of stationery—which no law can reduce. Then,
more important, there’s the question of confidence. When a “one minute
boss”—this term reflects the ease with which companies will be able to
be set up, using the Internet—turns up at the bank he might have quite
a job convincing the man in a sober suit that he’s serious, and that
could go for suppliers as well.
Simplification is, says Raffarin, what it’s all about. So,
instead of sitting with a paper-shuffler at a centre de formation des
entreprises you just get on-line and—bingo!—you’ve set yourself up and
can start trading virtually at once. Actually, the present system at
least means you can ask questions and get a bit of advice. The danger
now is that some people will take off into business without thinking
through what they’re doing. On the other hand, some of the promised
changes are positive: an entrepreneur will be able to run an S.A.R.L.
out of his home for up to 5 years which could save him quite a lot and
for one year he’ll be able to combine running his company with a
salaried job—and only pay social charges once… And the system of
levying these charges on new small companies is to be simplified with a
total holiday from the demands of URSSAF in the first year—but with
repayment scheduled over the following five years.
So the verdict? Already, within our community, you get a lot of
no-hopers leaping into business, in everything from bars
to—er—magazines. Certainly, Raffarin’s “simplification” will help
people with sound ideas and the common sense to pursue them with some
hope of success. It’ll also encourage the fatuous and the fantasists…
and, alas, the crooked. You’ll see…
© Phil Heinlein
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