Since you seem to be the right audience, I'll advertise it to you ;) ...especially since I'm rather a candidate to leave this country!
> You need network effects of smart people
We definitely have this, especially in the heart of Paris, and in other cities too. I've lived in Madrid and Sydney, therefore I dare giving my opinion, with the limitation that I'm not a serial entrepreneur in each of those cities.
> where creative people would want to live
Well, it's Paris, land of Macron, of Montmartre, and social mixity with black/white/arabs/traders/social-workers/low-income living together, etc. A lot of people live this mixity, fertile for ideas and leverage. The glamour is however balanced by high rental costs (=most often living far in the suburbs) and medium pays (60k€ per year is high for us, but health, unemployment, youth education and retirement are included).
> Good universities
We have plenty of excellent engineering and management schools (Centrale, X, INSA, EM Lyon, INSEAD, Les Mines, HEC), half of them free and nonetheless excellent (In France free doesn't mean students are bad, rather the opposite). We're not well versed in international rankings, so Australian unis may rank above us, but I'm persuaded it's more about tweaking the rankings than student IQ.
Given the impression you give, maybe have a business trip in Paris and interview people in coworking spaces to have alternative opinions? You may love France!
> You need network effects of smart people
We definitely have this, especially in the heart of Paris, and in other cities too. I've lived in Madrid and Sydney, therefore I dare giving my opinion, with the limitation that I'm not a serial entrepreneur in each of those cities.
> where creative people would want to live
Well, it's Paris, land of Macron, of Montmartre, and social mixity with black/white/arabs/traders/social-workers/low-income living together, etc. A lot of people live this mixity, fertile for ideas and leverage. The glamour is however balanced by high rental costs (=most often living far in the suburbs) and medium pays (60k€ per year is high for us, but health, unemployment, youth education and retirement are included).
> Good universities
We have plenty of excellent engineering and management schools (Centrale, X, INSA, EM Lyon, INSEAD, Les Mines, HEC), half of them free and nonetheless excellent (In France free doesn't mean students are bad, rather the opposite). We're not well versed in international rankings, so Australian unis may rank above us, but I'm persuaded it's more about tweaking the rankings than student IQ.
Given the impression you give, maybe have a business trip in Paris and interview people in coworking spaces to have alternative opinions? You may love France!