Last I saw job offers for mistral (engineering, Paris) it advertised 90k euros base salary. Not sure how they’re intending to compete with the US when even a top AI lab can’t afford to be competitive :-/
some people would rather live in paris than los angels or san francisco (and rightly so, if you ask me)...
There's more to life than money past a certain point, I'd rather live in the Alps on a lower salary.