Update : Thanks for the feedbacks !

1st update: Included mobile phone + Internet

2nd update: Huge update, completly forgot about one tax on the salary..

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I'm French, I can give you some more details.

I'm a full stack Ruby Developer, and I work at https://www.talent.io, the first recruitment platform for developers in Europe. (If you're looking to relocate in Paris, London or Berlin, you know where to look. )

I usually don't comment a lot on HN, but if it can gives people the desire to move in France / Europe to work, this is great for my country / continent.

I'm gonna speak with raw cold numbers, for me it speaks more than some random "headlines".

Here in Paris, developers are paid between 40K and 90K (there are developers that are far better paid - and unfortunately far less paid-), but this is a large "common" fork I'm giving to you. Those numbers are raw, meaning that you have to remove the tax.
Here my own numbers, hoping it can help you imaginate with your current own situation.

Note : I'm living with my GF, so I'm gonna divide all "common" expenses. We have equivalent salaries.

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Salary + flat

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My raw income last year was appx 45K euros. When you remove the first tax each month, I have 34600 left.
I paid appx 2600 to the state in taxes, only for the salary. It's a quite good salary for a junior / mid developer here. (22 years old, 2 years of professionnal experiences in Fullstack Ruby / Rails developer).
In Paris, for a 35m2 (365 ft2) with furnitures (meaning full equiped, from the Kitchen to the Bed to the sofa and desks), I paid 1K2 / month, so 14 400 for a year. (Living with my GF, so dividing it by 2 : 650 euros / month / person, so 7800 euros / year / person)
You have to add the taxes, which was approximately a half month of rent : 650 (dividing by 2: 325 euros).
So in total, I paid to the state for my flate + income taxes 5500 euros.
Total net income : 32000 euros / year

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Common expenses - Insurances - Transportations - Food

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* Healthcare insurance ~ 40 euros / month, the company pays half for it. (240 / year)

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This is not the best insurance ever, I could have go for a better one at greater prices. It covers for the basics. I'm young and in good health, I take care of my glasses and my dentition, so
To give you an idea, I have to change my glasses every 1.5 year / 2years, the total price of my last bill was 322 euros, my glasses were full covered (with full treatment on lenses),
I had to pay from my pocket 50 euros for the spectacle frame. I also had to replace a tooth because it broke at sport, on a 600 euros cost, I only paid 47 euros (going to a private clinic - not public hospital.).
From a basic surgery, cost was appx 1000 euros, I didn't paid anything (public hospital) - bad note is that I waited 3 months for the surgery - it was not urgent at all -. Public healthcare in France is overbooked, but it's good.

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* House insurance ~ 20 euros / month. Nothing to say. (120 euros / year /person)

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* Transportation (Only counting public transportation, not Uber etc...)

here we have the subway, bus, bike, tramway (and soon a boat :o), it costs 75 euros / month, the company pays half for it. (450 euros / year)

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* Electricity

nothing much to say, we pay appx 70 euros / month, so 35 euros / person / month, so 420 euros / person / year
I won't talk much about food, because it REALLY depends your habits, if you live alone / with a family. Here for 2, we approximately pay 600 euros / month - We love food. We could have reduced it a little, but we try to eat locally / bio, it costs much more.
Per year per person, it's appx 3600 euros / person.

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* Mobile phone + internet

It's quite cheap here.

Mobile phone, unlimited phone calls in France (Even in europe I believe) + unlimited text + "unlimited" Internet (4GO / month of data 4G then caped) at "Sosh", I pay 25 euros / month (300 euros / months)

Home internet, provider is called "Orange" + television, fiber 500 MBits fully unlimited, I pay 50 euros / month (600 euros / year, 300 euros / year / person) (And it works damn well).

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total (tl;dr) :
In total, last year, I earned 39500 euros, taxes deducted. I paid 3600 (food) + 450 (transportation) + 240 (health insurance) + 120 (house insurance) + 300 (mobile phone) + 300 (Home internet) + 420 (electricity) = 26570 euros net of income after all "life mandatory" stuff.

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Please please please, do note that I did NOT included all restaurants, clubs, travels, clothings and all "fun" stuff. It really depends on your lifestyle, and I don't even know how much I paid for it.

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Education

It's true, public education is almost free. It costs less than 1K euros / child / year to go to high school (I even think it's way less than that, but IDK since I went to a private school).
You can even lower those costs because we do have a lot of helps from the state. When my brother went to a historian school, he paid nothing, and even more, the French state paid him 10K a year to go study (Because he was a damn good student)
For my private computer science school (the "42" school of Xavier Niel is a perfect copycat of mine, but free - unfortunately it did not exists at that time), I paid (my parents did) 50K, and this is only for the school (5 years, so appx 10K a year)

About the other bullet points @renaudg talked about, I don't have much to say, It's pretty self explanatory.

I hope it does help people better evaluate the "cost" of life in France, if I forgot something / you want more informations, please do not hesitate to ask :).