Francois - it probably won’t surprise you to hear that I’ve been to France three times. I can still remember the sound and smell of the ocean during a locomotive change outside of Montpellier on the way from Barcelona to Lyon. Or the quiet plazas in Lyon during midsummer, and the food, of course. The TGV to Paris. Berthillion ice cream on Ile de la Cite. The Louvre and the Jardin des Tuileries. Not to mention the Musee d’Orsay. Really a remarkable place of great beauty, especially if you’re operative in French.
That said, I won’t be nearly as abrasive as AJFranke in my criticisms of France, which I suspect you share. My sense is that France, like many countries, is in the midst of serious change - mostly about who it wants to be when it grows up. What I mean is that I think France is more or less where England was about 15-20 years ago. Both are countries which were in the past so strong as to have influence all over the world, and have more or less lost that. If you remember, 15-20 years ago England was trying to redefine its role in Europe and basically remain relevant. It survived and became the financial center of Europe.
I think France is in the same position today. It needs to rediscover what it does well, its core competency, and attract talent to exploit it. Unfortunately, it has some issues. It still maintains a somewhat larger than necessary public sector which has become sclerotic. I remember when I studied the language, learning that the highest scoring students on the baccalaureat were intended to become bureaucrats. This adherence to a large public sector is probably no small explanation for why much of France’s talented students end up here or in the UK. Another issue is that of its 60 million people, about 10% are Muslim - disproportionately poor, unemployed, male, and pissed off. While it represents a major political problem, it represents an even bigger potential public safety issue, as fundamentalism spreads in the absence of hope. That said, I wouldn’t want it to become the country of LePen, either. I can still remember a France which defined “French” as being anybody who spoke the language, regardless of race or ethnicity.
Unfortunately, as France tries to find its role, I think the wide perception, largely backed by truth, is that it has defined itself by opposing the US. While this is in itself irritating, I think it pisses people off more when they consider that for most of the second half of the twentieth century, a large part, if not the majority, of Western Europe’s defense budget was paid by the US, in the form of NATO and direct bases. So for France to pursue policies in contravention of ours, I think, represents to some an insult.
I like France. Its contributions to democracy and culture are numerous. However its endowments on mankind, it still needs to figure out what it wants to be when it grows up. It has talent and assets - it just needs to figure out how to capitalize on them. It can’t try to cling to importance by being a roadblock - it should aspire to be a place people admire, not dread.
It reminds me of a classmate from Strasbourg in graduate school. He grated on me by insisting that Americans had life all wrong - all work and no play make Johnny a dull boy. He may have had a point, but he refused to acknowledge that he was pissing into the wind. Unsurprisingly, he stayed here after grad school, because I guess France didn’t present enough opportunity.
