As the Olympics kick off this week, and tech news in France goes into its August slumber, it's nice to know that major publications like The Economist still have enough time to write lengthy pieces trashing the European startup scene. Les Misérables may have been addressed to the entire European Startup Scene, but it seems that Germany & France took the brunt of the beating. The UK, of course, was mysteriously absent from this post, save a sentence or two, and while Berlin got a detailed breakdown of how cafe's function, it seems the unnamed author wasn't quite get as familiar with Paris' startup hotspots.

As per the norm among Europe-trashing articles, the author made reference to his fair share of recycled statistics - labor laws, bankruptcy penalties, oh and it turns out that the US founded more big companies than Europe betwen 1901 and 1925, so that's important. I won't try to argue that this article is false, because it's clear that Europe is not the US - but I don't see what amazing insight these articles are feigning to provide? The only statistic I'd like to see is the number of articles written comparing European startups to US startus - because it seems the number of these articles is skyrocketing, like an opposing political partying trying to trash its opponent's credibility.

The underlying tone is the same in every one of these articles, which come out like clockwork - GigaOM's "Are European Entrepreneur's Defeatist?" (thanks Bobbie), TechCrunch's "European Startups Need To Get A Valley Education, And Fast," and don't forget BetaBeat's "French Startups Take Refuge in New York," (I personally ripped this article apart here). The point is: we get it. Europe's hard for startups, and hiring's still hard in France - boo hoo. When has building a startup ever been easy? Who's been spreading these rumors that launching a startup successfully has been or ever was easy? I've never heard any real entrepreneurs say that, so why are we spending so much time comparing the N% success rate in Europe to the (N+1)% success rate in the US? 

I prefer to report what is happening, and what's good for France, and Europe, instead of stomping my feet to the same "no billion dollar exit in Europe" mantra.So, while major publications are trashing Europe from abroad, let's look at some of Europe's pathetic startups announced this week: