Well... We're talking tech unicorns here. France ain't exactly know for it's tech companies. There's what, eight EU (not french, but entire EU) tech companies in the top 100 tech companies worldwide?

The biggest EU one is german (not french), it's SAP. At least two french ones are basically french militaro-industrial complex / fake-private actually state-owned ones, being "big" by virtue of sucking french taxpayers money.

I don't know what France's culture is (although I'm a native french speaker and typing this from France) but "producing tech unicorns" certainly ain't part of it.

Tech unicorns are those start-ups with valuations above 1 billion, not the top 100 (top by what what measure, revenue, profit, market cap, number of employees?).

Also, a nations economy doesn't depend on the number of VC backrd tech unicorns. That France economy has quite some issues ain't news, the perceived lack of tech unicorns (if there ever was a pseudo-SV centric view of things, that's a front runner), is none of them.

@hef19898 Not 'better' just different culturally. The US installs ivy league types at well funded startups just as the french install their ENA/Ecole Polytechnique elites in their state funded 'startups' but somehow the French dynamic doesn't work nearly as well as the US one.