That’s rough. Apply everywhere where you’re authorized to work. Now is not the time to be picky.
Next time you spend 5 figures relocating your entire household to another country, you might want to negotiate some protections (relocation expense, repatriation expense, signing bonus, 1-2 year employment guarantee, whatever).
You pay for healthcare everywhere in the world. The only difference is how.
Whichever country pays me the most for my work, effort and talents.
Forget the empty platitudes. Show me the money.
My Quality of Life improved exponentially when I moved back to the US.
What benefits your country mandates by law is irrelevant to you as a skilled worker/PhD. Virtually every job you will have at that level will offer you compensation and benefits well beyond the statutory minimums regardless.
You’re pretty much on point with the cons, however:
So long story short, yes I would say the pros vastly outweigh the cons.
FedEx. The FedEx store also has padded boxes designed for shipping laptops. Get one of those. They were about $15 in the US.
You may want to think about asking your friend to hand carry it if they’re planning on visiting anywhere in Europe anytime soon. You can go meet them at the airport where they’ll be arriving and pick it up from them.
Do you have official offers in either country? You should go where you have job offers and where the job offers are better. As a grad, you’re going to have very few options and you’re not going to be making a whole lot of money.
I think the word you’re looking for is Promissory Estoppel. IANAL and I certainly don’t know French law but that would be something OP would need to speak to a lawyer about.