“The French don’t have a word for entrepreneur,” said former US president George Bush. I’m afraid the current presidential campaign in France is starting to show how right he was; or nearly right. I would put it this way: the French don’t have a culture for entrepreneurship. Let’s give him a little credit for noticing that!

AxiCom France recently reinforced its position within the entrepreneurial community, by handling PR support for the European “Startupbootcamp” project and recently by helping to promote French association PME Finance’s initiatives. These experiences raised questions of how to best develop and manage entrepreneurial projects and also how to finance them.

One of the most talked about areas, when it comes to setting up a business in France is that once you have the project, the idea, all you need to do is to go to URSAFF (Unemployment service, tax administration) and make your declaration. You don’t try to find partners, you’re not invited to go and talk to your industrial ecosystem, you don’t even start by looking for customers (customers, what’s that about?). No, you just go and prepare the ground for your contribution to the wealth of l’Etat. Not of the Nation, no, to the State.

Showroomprive.com’s CEO Thierry Petit recently spoke about what a great time he had listening to the French presidential candidates debate on TV the previous night: “What are these guys doing for me? I have created 400 jobs in this country and all they seem to care about is…” Well, I’m not going to write the end of his sentence here, it was quite curt, but you get the gist. Despite all the ink that is currently being expended on how much the candidates care about small and medium-sized businesses in France, I share Thierry's view. And apparently so does François Momboisse, head of FEVAD (the industry body regulating e-commerce in France), his latest paper published in JournalDuNet could be summarised as; Spring’s coming, taxes on digital are flourishing.

The young founder of a French startup applying to the Startupbootcamp mentorship programme told me: “We chose Startupbootcamp because it was European, in our view it offers a good alternative to going to the US, which initially seemed the most obvious solution for us." It's telling that at no point did he think of staying in France, or even seeking help here.

Why is it that France still doesn’t inspire people who wants to start a business? How do they create a favourable fiscal, financial and industrial environment for champions to emerge in the new economy? How many French “IT”, or e-commerce companies are recognised beyond our borders?

This country is full of talent and  creative energy, it may well be time for the government to start talking to the  business world again (and this needs to go beyond EDF and France Telecom) It’s probably easier to raise a tax than sell an idea to an investor or a customer. I hope the day comes where the local authorities come to me to pitch and defend their taxes, and I can trade with them and get a discount (otherwise, I can pick another taxman, there are plenty on the market…). I hope the day comes where the guys who want to start  the next Twitter can work in Paris and sell in San Francisco (not the opposite). I hope the day comes, where Georges Bush understands French. Is that a dream too far?

Francois Gobillot, AxiCom France