E-MAIL THIS LINK
To: 

Schadenfreude Special in France
The French are trying to find reasons to be cheerful. They are being urged to consider all the good things France has going for it in order to dispel the pessimism which has pervaded the country. The loss of the 2012 Olympic games to London and the rejection of the European constitution provided two sharp blows to French morale, and high unemployment, a stagnating economy and dissatisfaction with political leaders, particularly President Jacques Chirac, have done nothing to lighten the gloom.

Now Le Parisien newspaper has produced a three-part series to put a sourire (smile) back on French faces. "There are reasons to hope, more numerous than one would imagine," the paper declared. "While the French are always often arrogant, they also like big depressions and running themselves down.
We also like running them down.
There are certainly lots and lots and lots of reasons to despair ... unemployment has undermined French society for 30 years, parents feel that their children are not doing as well as them ... factories close ... Europe works badly ... the political class is often supported locally but judged incompetent, deaf, and even corrupt nationally. Has everything become so black in this beautiful country of France?" it asks.
Well yeah, pretty much.
The paper gives a number of reasons to be cheerful. Family life is happy, reflected in the fact that the country has the highest birthrate in the EU with 1.88 children per woman which is still below replacement rate. The French live to a grand age, 76.7 years for men and 83.8 for women, one of the highest life expectancies in the world.
Unless there is a heatwave
Its public services are the envy of the world, Le Parisien says, citing the TGV high-speed train, the motorway network, telecommunications and electricity systems and the health service. The paper claims that France has the second biggest agricultural sector in the world.

Then there are its provincial cities, which help to attract 77 million tourists every year - more than anywhere else in the world "and boosting the economy by €35bn annually".

The depression in France has not been helped by the relative success and prosperity of its traditional rival, Britain. Yesterday, the likely future presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy rubbed salt into national wounds and managed a dig at President Chirac by telling members of the UMP governing party that Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair were his heroes. "In the 1970s it [Britain] was finished and no longer counted on the international scene. Who could have guessed that in 30 years Great Britain would become a beacon in the world?"
Thatcher and Blair would have.

Posted by: Steve White 2005-07-12
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=123758