The micro-enterprise regime was designed to promote the freedom to undertake. Each year, it attracts tens of thousands of French people, seduced by its apparent simplicity. But once the activity has been launched, many come up against a series of structural brakes. Tax charge disconnected from realities, lack of social protection worthy of the name, ineligibility to many support systems: everything happens as if the State discouraged success when it was born outside of traditional frameworks.
A regime that sanctions growth
As soon as their turnover progresses, self-employed entrepreneurs must integrate VAT, then leave the simplified regime beyond a certain threshold. This tilting, far from being fluid, implies increased administrative complexity, often discouraging. In 2023, the Federation of Self-Entrepreneurs (FNAE) alerted to the perverse effects of this ceiling: almost a third of the micro-entrepreneurs concerned chose to reduce their activity voluntarily so as not to get out of the diet.
This brake on growth is also found in the banking approach. According to a study carried out by the company creation observatory (BPI France Creation), 67 % of micro-entrepreneurs do not obtain the necessary funding when they wish to develop, mainly because of their status. Neither company nor employees, they remain a separate category, not very readable for funders as well as for professional insurance.
Few rights, but reinforced controls
The micro-entrepreneur pays his social contributions monthly or quarterly. But this proportional payment opens only very partial rights. Illness judgments are little compensated, retirement remains modest, and the right to unemployment is almost non -existent. The allowance of self -employed workers (ATI), established in 2019, capped at € 800 per month over six months, is subject to conditions so strict that it only concerned 911 beneficiaries in 2021 according to Dares.
At the same time, checks are multiplied. In 2023, the Directorate General of Public Finances increased the checks targeting micro-enterprises by 20 %, in particular those operating via digital platforms. The case of Deliveroo largely fueled distrust: in 2022, the Paris Court of Appeal confirmed the requalification of delivery contracts in disguised wage earners. This jurisprudence feeds a general suspicion on the status, even for those who exercise perfectly independently.
Excluded from public support
The majority of public systems intended to support business creation or growth-Bpifrance, France 2030, ADEME calls for projects or innovation aid-in fact exclude micro-entrepreneurs. FNAE stresses that these devices require the creation of a classic legal structure (SAS, SARL) to access them. Result: entrepreneurs with concrete and active solutions on the ground are disqualified, for lack of legal status in accordance with administrative requirements.
Even the major support programs for the ecological transition, as the France Plan revives, condition aid at a level of legal and accounting structuring inaccessible to the majority of self-employed entrepreneurs. In 2022, INSEE had more than a million assets under this regime, however, a quarter of all the self -employed in France.
Structures forced to get out to exist
Many players now installed on the market had to abandon their status as a micro-entrepreneur well before having reached a critical size. This is the case of the Shine platform, founded in 2017, which was aimed at independents and freelancers. His founding team had initially considered a slight development in micro-enterprise. They quickly created a SAS to be able to access fundraising, obtain regulatory approvals and contract with financial partners. Their success was only possible by giving up their initial regime.
Same observation for the founders of Legalplace, Legalstart or Freebe: everyone started first in a spirit of flexible and individual entrepreneurship, before structuring themselves legally to access the market. The status of micro-entrepreneur was only for them a temporary starting point, quickly abandoned under the pressure of institutional constraints.
An institutional model out of step with the uses
Public speeches promote agility, risk -taking and innovation. But the French administrative, fiscal and social administrative framework continues to favor conventional entrepreneurial forms. Individual success remains suspect as soon as it frees itself from the usual structures. For self -employed workers, the implicit message is clear: undertake yes, but not too much. And above all, not alone. The boom in collectives like Indie Workers or Services as a self-entrepreneur portal illustrates this specific support for support.
These actors overcome the deficiencies of the system by offering legal advice, billing tools, income simulators … So many services that should be provided or facilities by the State itself. In 2023, the FreeBe platform – dedicated to freelancers – listed more than 25,000 regular users, proof of a massive, simple and suitable management need.
A precariousness reinforced by the lack of representation
Micro-entrepreneurs, although omnipresent in sectors such as delivery, advice or communication, remain underrepresented in social dialogue bodies. In 2021, the Union of Auto-Entrepreneurs alerted to the absence of a specific seat for the self-employed in discussions relating to the pension reform. This institutional dismissal has the direct effect of marginalizing their needs in the development of public policies.
The Economic, Social and Environmental Council (EESC) recommended in 2023 better integration of the representatives of the self -employed in the sectoral negotiations. For the time being, no concrete measure has been taken. This representation deficit limits the possibility of adapting the regime to the realities of the field, accentuating the fragility of the isolated entrepreneurial routes.
