I don't know really; I started my company 8 years ago and it didn't appear to be that much of a hassle to be honest. I could find 3 banks willing to take us onboard in an afternoon.
And I only pay 140€/mo for the whole family health-care extension :P
Okay, thanks for sharing that perspective. Perhaps its the case of different cities having different business cultures within France? Not unlike how doing a high tech startup is going to look somewhat different in the bay area of California vs in Macon, Georgia?
There are different cultures in different cities for sure.
That said I, like a growing number of people I know, do everything "online" from a very rural place of France (both doing consulting for heavily technical startups or regular companies, and launching a SaaS product), and meet entrepreneurs and technical people once per year at conferences etc.
Then again I don't have employees (we're 2 cofounders as a couple), so being remote is probably easier!
And I only pay 140€/mo for the whole family health-care extension :P