themselves, which may explain why they've bought up half of France.
Here's Stuart Jeffries writing in the Guardian:
The biggest difference of all between France and l'outre-Manche (ie
the UK) or l'outre-Atlantique (ie the US) remains the pursuit of
sensual pleasure, a thing that the Anglo-Saxon business model seems
to have foolishly ignored. True, it is the American constitution that
makes formalistic reference to the "pursuit of happiness", but it is
the French nation that concentrates, and substantially, on pursuing
pleasure and then savouring it properly. They do not need to be
reminded by their constitution that they have a right to do so.
That cultivation of pleasure, so exotic for us and so contrary to how
we live in our ill-dressed, ill-groomed, fast-food fetishising,
sexually incompetent, binge-drinking culture, is why so many
foreigners are seduced by France...
There is something called making "le pont", which means that if a
national holiday falls in the middle of the week, French workers will
take off enough days before or after it to extend it all the way to
the nearest weekend.... And there is none of this American rubbish of
two weeks' leave a year in France either: Paris, in particular, is
massively depopulated from Bastille Day (July 14) until September as
the French head off for at least two months of well-earned eating,
drinking, romancing and dozing....
Then there are the extraordinary public services. Not only does
France have the fastest and most efficient trains in the world, but a
system of means-tested state childcare that even today makes me green
with envy. The poorest French parents can send their children to a
state-run creche from 8.30am to 6.30pm for free, while colleagues on
similar salaries to mine send their two toddlers to a creche at a
cost of €800 (£500) a month, which is inconceivable in Britain.
Partly as a result of this humane system, not only does France have
one of the highest birthrates in western Europe but also one of the
highest proportion of women in the workforce...
After his election to the Elysée on Sunday, Sarko, sounding not so
much like a Frenchman as a joyless Puritan stepping off the
Mayflower, grimly announced: "The French people have decided to break
with the ideas, behaviour and habits of the past. I will rehabilitate
work, merit and morals." Nicolas, baby, please don't! Please don't
take the belle out of la belle France. Please don't make yourselves
like us. You won't like it.
The Guardian, May 9, 2007
