Piss off ya’all! 
“France has many problems—high unemployment, lack of mobility, weakness of higher education, affordability of housing, inadequate integration of minorities, public debt and threat of industrial decline, to name a few. But there is no model outside France to solve these problems.”
There is a model to solve some of those problems. Make it easy to fire people, like it is in the usa, and unemployment will go down.
Piss off ya’all!
http://www.digitalnpq.org/...ummer/11_attali.html
I went to b-school with a guy from Strasbourg, who was fond of arrogantly commenting on how Americans didn’t know how to “live.” This, while he spent most of his time down on the Strand trying to rollerblade and bang chicks.
I don’t think he’s completely off, however. France suffers from a lot of problems, mostly related to a calcification of the culture, in my opinion. I suspect its not unlike the UK in the early '90s, with a bit of an identity problem.
That said, I have a feeling that the French are generally happier and do know how to live. Americans are obsessed with working, mostly to buy the next thing which does nothing for the quality of their lives. The French seem to be more interested in enriching the quality of their daily lives and seem to find the work/leisure tradeoff to be less complicated. Frankly, as far as I can tell, the fact that they take August off seems to do a lot more good than harm. But that’s just me.
This french guy knows how to live:
“we do not want your model or the things that come with it like deodorant, capable armed forces or the ability to win bike races”
ps I’m waiting for mjuric to jump in and comment on French cars again
.
“France, and the French left in particular, is not going to surrender to any model.”
A frenchman talking about surrender - ya gotta love it. I can totally see the little white flag he is waving in his head… like his father did to the Nazis… and like his uncle did in Dien Bien Phu. 
People from Surrey are not buying houses in Provence because the standard of living there is so much higher…its more of a weather thing.
I totally agree w/ the article, but then again I’m a Francophile.
It’s a matter of time before the UK sues France over the increased number of skin cancers over there.
like his uncle did in Dien Bien Phu.
Like the US was successful in Nam
Yeah! Gotta give it to those tough northern commie bastards - they sure could fight a protracted war.
I tell ya, the French could have won Dien Bien Phu if they had put their womens on the front line - nobody would have been able to resist them!
Is your cousin French?
Yes but she does not surrender to me easily!
Heh heh…if you can’t get the French to surrender you must be doing something wrong
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Piss off ya’all!
All fine and good. Just let us know when we can take photographs of the French prez.
;-O
looks like you have a good thing going… but finland has you beat at your own game:
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2007/work.life.balance/chart/
and all i can say about the US is: at least we’re not canada.
you can buy a frenchie military rifle real cheap too…“Never fired and only dropped once” Good as new…
They also have some bad ass tanks…one forward gear and 5 gears for reverse…
All fine and good. Just let us know when we can take photographs of the French prez.
Think about that - can you imagine any other leader swimming up to the photographers boat and telling them to bugger off?
Lets see him try that in the bay area! Our pot holes would eat him up and spit him out…
This french guy knows how to live:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWLbu1wIIEo
Oh… My… God… How did I miss this?! Mind blowing… Only ze French…