You might think that, given the country’s notoriously high income tax rates (both personal and corporate), few companies would be knocking on the doors to set up shop in France and domestic businesses might well be lining up to pull out.

Au contraire. Despite its high tax burden, France is among the best countries in the world in which to start or expand a business, according to a story today in IndustryWeek.

The article cites an unimpeachable source — AFII, the French international investment agency — which reports that “worldwide, France is the fifth most attractive place to start a business, taking into account the costs of employment, installation, transportation, taxes, equipment, and energy.”

Among several surprising revelations (surprising to me, anyway, accustomed as I am to dissing the French tax system, here for example) is the claim that France now offers “the world’s most advantageous fiscal regime for corporate research and development.”

All of which is encouraging, if it’s more than just brave spin by the French agency. The United States is about to become the nation with the highest corporate income tax rate in the world (if Japan presses on with plans to reduce its top rate from 40 percent to 25 percent). It would be nice to think that this doesn’t necessarily spell a total disaster for foreign direct investment. ###