Understanding
France
and a few comparisons with the U.S.
This book provides background information for journalists, academics and intellectuals who want to understand France before they express opinions about it. It is a reaction to many papers I read in the foreign press and found superficial. It is hard to really understand France without being French and living here.
I finished writing its initial version on May 18, 2006, and updated it after the June 2007 elections. It is not translated into English yet. For the time being, I have to assume that readers interested in France understand French. I wrote it with as few abstract or ambiguous words as possible.
The topics I discuss are often hard to come by:
§ The real problems with immigration in France, and why the French demand secularism.
§ Why so many French demonstrate, and why so violently.
§ The French society is hostile and demoralized, its youth is conservative, and few citizens respect laws and institutions.
§ The ideology of the French education system is the source of its poor performance, and the real cause of the country's structural unemployment.
§ The life employment of civil servants. Communist unions and political strikes.
§ The misunderstanding of economics: why the French oppose the market economy and globalization, why they demand a government-run economy.
§ The world's most complex legal system, with over 9,000 laws and 120 000 decrees, is also the most unstable. It prevents citizens from obtaining justice and governments from running the country.
§ A tax-and-spend economic policy that wastes 100 billion euros per year.
§ The real figures of the French economy, and international comparisons. Why our multinationals thrive.
§ Social and financial inequalities. Comparisons with the U.S.
§ The media and the violations of democracy in France and the European Union.
§ The reforms our politicians do not dare to propose.
The facts and statistics I provide are accurate and verifiable; each one comes with its reference, an Internet link in most cases.
This book is intended as a contribution to the understanding of France. It is very negative about many aspects of our situation, and positive about a few. It does not attempt to prove any theory, or fight any political battle. I make it available for free.
Understanding France (La France expliquée aux étrangers) PDF, 443 pages, 5 MB