I'm a French entrepreneur as well, and my point of view is very different. First, what is called "taxes" in this article are not "taxes" but "social charges", in the sense that they don't go to the government as the article pretends, but to other organisations in charge of pensions, health insurance, etc. which include fully private for-profit insurance companies. In most cases, it is the company or the employee who choses which organism or company will be the benificiary of these charges. The fact that these points have not been mentioned in the article pretty much tells you how biased it is.
Also, this system is no more costly, actually less by my own experience, than its American counterpart. I've had many occasions to compare: in the US these "social charges" are not paid directly by the employee (this is not so true since an american company often pays directly for health insurance and sometimes other costly benefits) but since your employee must be able to invest in his pension fund, its life insurance, etc., at the end of the day these expenses must be "provisioned" in the salary paid to the employee. Which means that in France, a direct salary is lower than in America, but all the benefits and "social" expenses have already been taken on its paycheck.
The other point on the difficulties to fire someone, however, is much more valid.
Ah, so these "social charges" are optional and voluntary, and are not mandated by ze government.
Well, then this story certainly is inaccurate.