`France is maybe the best place to start a company,` said Jean-Rémi Kouchakji, co-founder of PayinTech, a Paris-based fintech firm that was among the 9,000 startups at the Viva Technology conference this year. Paradoxically, he said, it´s a difficult place for small- and medium-sized companies to thrive, a necessary step for building a corporate titan. This long-running question-why hasn´t Europe created tech giants like China and the US-played out in dozens of forms during the conference. On the main stage, the star power of tech-sector heavyweights like Alibaba´s Jack Ma could only be matched on the European side by the likes of French president Emmanuel Macron. Google, Facebook, Amazon,...
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