Hi and welcome to the forum.

Hm, haven't heard of a shortage of house painters here... Most houses at least here in the Paris region are stone or stucco. I've seen a couple of the neighbors re-do the stucco (and we probably ought to think about having that done sometime, too), but no one seems to paint the outside of the house here.

Starting up in business in France is always, well, an "experience." The registration process is a bit involved, and you will definitely have to be ready to do everything in French. There are some proposals out there to try and simplify things for us small business types.
Cheers,
Bev