Solo French Startups Face Curbs as Hollande Heeds Lobbies
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Helga Lemierre’s work as an independent translator provides enough money to cover the mortgage on her home in Grenoble, near the French Alps, while letting her be available for her two daughters. She’s concerned those days may be over.
The trilingual 43-year-old operates as an “auto-entrepreneur,” a special status that more than 1 million people, or almost 1.5 percent of France’s population, have used since 2009 to create one-person companies. The idea was to make it simpler to create a startup in a country that ranks 38th in the world for ease of doing business.