You'll need to go to Paris for a medical check that you can do your job. All French employees must do this. And you have to do it every two years. Pee in a cup. Undress over there.
Is it a joke? Never heard of that in 30 years..
I work in tech in France and in my personal experience, this is fake. You do have to get a medical exam upon employment but that's it. You'll have to get your shirt off for a heart exam. But it doesn't have to be in Paris, no peeing in a cup, and you won't have to do it every 2 years.
If my experience a few years ago with the auto entrepreneur scheme and URSAFF are anything to go by, you'll need a lot of patience, the ability to speak half decent French and a sense of humour if you want to avoid ripping all your hair out :)
I love France (have even married one of their citizens!) but this is a country where in 2013 we moved from one department to another and had to close our bank accounts with the branches in the first department and open new ones in the second department because there was no way to migrate accounts between branches of the same bank o_O We literally had to post cheques to a friend in the old department so he could deposit them while we waited for the old accounts to be closed and new ones opened (complete with different cards, chequebooks, account numbers - the works).
Why did we need to migrate accounts? Because you could only deposit cheques in the same department as your local branch. Why were we depositing cheques?! Because half of France (including my fiancées' employer at the time) still uses them for everything (which is also great fun if you're in a rush in Super-U and the person in front decides to pay with one).
Having said all of that, France is awesome despite its flaws and there are lots of reasons to be hopeful with Macron now piloting the ship.
You can use an online bank if you think you'll move around a lot. Plus today it has become very easy to switch bank thanks to Loi Macron, and most bank now take charge of everything to attract new customers.