Engineer in France in 2026: stay put, or look elsewhere?

Data-driven comparison between France, Québec and Japan. Spoiler: it's not your imagination, it really is quieter here. And elsewhere, things are happening.

For the past few months in France, it's been dead calm. Not the restful calm of vacation—the worrying calm of a waiting room. Since the dissolution of the National Assembly in June 2024, investment decisions have been moving in slow motion, when they happen at all. Fiscal uncertainty has replaced strategy as the national sport of finance departments. And for an engineer, a freelancer or a tech graduate, the rising question is no longer 'which company should I choose?' but 'should I choose France?'.

Let's look at the numbers. Without activism, but without complacency either.

France: a long correction, fueled by optical illusion

French Tech fundraising dropped from €7.8 billion in 2024 to €7.4 billion in 2025. On paper, a moderate 5% decline. Except this figure is a magnificent trompe-l'œil: without Mistral AI's single mega-round (€1.7 billion), the real drop would reach -26%. The number of deals fell by 15%. Translation: the market isn't going 'a bit less well,' it's going significantly worse, but one AI gem masks the general collapse. (Source: EY Venture Capital Barometer 2025.)

On the employment side, it's even more brutal. Developer job postings have melted—the order of magnitude given by Indeed is dizzying (up to -80% since the 2023 peak, a spectacular figure to relativize since it started from an atypical summit), while IT listings on platforms dropped 28% in 2025 alone and IT executive recruitment fell 21% between 2023 and 2025. In startups, around 10,000 hires disappeared compared to 2023-2024. One in five executives has frozen hiring. (Sources: Indeed/Developpez, HelloWork, IT Social, Le Monde Informatique.)

Service companies are taking hits: the French IT services market fell 1.8% in 2025, with heavyweights in the red. And for freelancers, the end of euphoria is official—average daily rate around €520/day, scarcer missions, longer bench periods. All crowned by a mechanical increase in contributions for micro-entrepreneurs: from 21.2% to 26.1% by 2026. Same work, lower billing, more contributions. The entrepreneurial dream, 2026 version.

Logical result: according to the 2025 Ipsos-BVA barometer, 57% of talents are considering expatriation within three years, 70% judge France to be 'in decline,' and Canada is their top destination. Around 15,000 young graduates already start their careers abroad each year. It's not an exodus; it's erosion. Which, long-term, is often worse.

Now let's look at where eyes are turning.

Québec: francophone dynamism (with a window to watch)

Montréal does roughly the opposite of Paris. Tech unemployment there hovers around 3.3% at the Canadian level—near full employment—and 88% of tech executives report difficulty recruiting. The city concentrates one of the world's largest AI research hubs (around Mila), with labs from Google, Microsoft, Meta and others, and investments keep flowing (CAD 500M from Microsoft in local cloud/AI, a CAD 120M public fund for startups). (Sources: Robert Half, Mila, Montréal International.)

On salaries, a junior software engineer starts around CAD 80,000 to 90,000 (roughly €54-60k), above a French junior, and the gap widens with experience. Add the decisive advantage: Québec's 2026-2029 immigration plan explicitly favors francophone candidates. For a French engineer, it's a linguistic boulevard that few nationalities possess.

The caveat, because honesty matters: Québec has tightened its rules. The famous Programme de l'expérience québécoise (PEQ) ended in November 2025, several pilot programs (including AI/IT) end in early 2026, and the pathway now goes through the Skilled Worker Selection Program via the Arrima platform—more selective, less predictable. The door is wide open, but the lock was recently changed. Verify the exact state of programs before packing your bags. (Sources: Government of Québec, IRCC, Littler.)

Japan: stability and a shortage working in your favor

Japan is the other model: less startup frenzy, but stability that France has forgotten, and a structural engineer shortage that becomes your best bargaining chip. METI's reference study mentions a deficit potentially reaching 790,000 IT professionals by 2030 (a figure to take for what it is—it dates from 2019 and hasn't been updated, but demographic trends make it credible). The country has every interest in bringing in foreign engineers, and it knows it.

Tech salaries are climbing significantly: the median for Tokyo developers rose from about 7 million yen in 2019 to 9.5 million in 2025, a +36% jump. And crucially, employer type changes everything: a Japanese company pays around 8.5 million yen median, but an international company without local entity goes up to 13.5 million (~€80k), above France. The Japanese arbitrage boils down to one rule: target an international employer. (Source: TokyoDev survey, Glassdoor.)

On the installation side, the points-based Highly Skilled Professional visa allows permanent residency in 1 to 3 years instead of ten, and the startup visa was extended nationwide in early 2025. The weak yen (near its lowest in three decades) is a real bonus for those arriving with euro savings—provided you keep in mind that Japanese inflation has bitten in recent years. The barrier remains language and culture: Japan can't be 'hacked' in an onboarding weekend. But for those who play the game, it's one of the safest and best-organized societies in the world. (Sources: MOFA Japan, JETRO, Expatica.)

So, are we leaving?

Don't make me say what I'm not saying: France remains a country that trains some of the world's best engineers, where life is good, and where rebounds are visible in early 2026. Leaving isn't a duty, and it's not treason. It's an option—one that a growing number of competent people are seriously examining, and which would be absurd not to put on the table.

The honest shortcut, if I had to give it to a hesitant engineer: Montréal for the best mix of AI dynamism + francophone culture + entry salary, with an immigration reform to watch closely. Tokyo to bet on lasting shortage and fast visa, paying off especially via an international employer, with the yen advantage at arrival. And France if you believe in the rebound and prefer playing at home—it's a respectable choice, as long as you make it with eyes open to the numbers.

The worst choice, really, is not choosing. Staying at the dock 'waiting for things to calm down,' when the calm here is precisely the problem.

Sébastien Lonjon leads Abbeal, a tech studio based in Paris, Montréal and Tokyo, and the international mobility program Mobbeal. Cited figures come from public sources (EY, Ipsos-BVA, Robert Half, METI, TokyoDev, Government of Québec) and are dated 2024-2026. Exchange rates and immigration program status evolve—verify them at the date you read this.