

Reasons to Envy the French - AndrewDucker
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/07/five-reasons-to-envy-the-frenc.html

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dbz
Reason not to envy the French as the head of a startup:

You _can't_ (afford to) fire anyone

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tptacek
It also sucks that:

* The culture expects (and until recently mandated) a 35 hour work week.

* The tax administration is a nightmare.

* The employment code is so bad that companies with just a few employees need a full-time person just to manage the forms.

* The culture shuns startups (compare VC industries, for instance, or find articles in Forbes where just 10 years ago the majority of citizens wanted jobs as civil servants).

* The culture is, like much of Europe, deeply classist, with leaders expected to graduate from an ultra-selective Ivy League of top schools.

All respect for pioneering cuisine and viticulture, but, uh, we do that stuff
pretty well now too. I'll stick with Wisconsin Hooks blue and Vermont Weston
cheese, and you can keep the extra 4 weeks of vacation and the 1,000 forms per
employees.

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Jun8
Interesting, when I wrote most of these points 4 mins ago I thought I'd be the
only who point out the cons of living in France.

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jobu
How about religious intolerance?
[http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/07/13/france.burqa.ban/...](http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/07/13/france.burqa.ban/index.html)

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arethuza
The main reasons I envy the French are: Chamonix, Val d'Isere, Courchevel, La
Grave...

And the language, and the food, and the trains...

Not to mention that if you do get into serious trouble French people are quite
often more helpful than other nationalities - I believe this is linked to an
odd law they have that _requires_ people to render assistance to people in
danger.

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antidaily
Hacker News?

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jacquesm
Yep. If only because the author is a regular contributor here. What with the
recent spate of questions here about what the ideal country to live in is this
is one way in which you could answer that question.

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Jun8
Disagree. People can blog on many different domains. Just because someone is a
regular contributor here doesn't mean that _all_ his ideas about anything
under the sun is relevant to HN.

Also, some of his points are highly debatable. The OP seesm to be against the
Iraq war and mentions France's occupation of Algeria, but fails to notice the
irony that that occupation was as brutal and unjust as the Iraq one.

As for France being the best country to live in, well, this is not the place
for that type of discussion, but just a few highlights to the contrary: (i)
highly elitist attitude of French towards foreigners, especially if you cannot
speak French well; (ii) toxic environment for startups (this applies to a lot
of European countries but France is an extreme example, I think), (iii) high
taxes (again, true for most Europe), (iv) (to me the worst) the Grand Illusion
that French governments for the past 60 years have tried to continue, namely
that France is a superpower, with its own sphere of influence (on paper, they
love the Francophones, but if you are dark skinned and live in Paris you are
despised). They go to great lengths, even detonating nuclear bombs and sinking
Greenpeace ships to keep this illusion.

OK, that was my prejudiced (aren't we all?) ideas on France. Now, let the
downvoting begin.

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jacquesm
I think you missed the humor in that post entirely.

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Jun8
Maybe you are right. OP's post seems to be flame bait, but raises some
interesting questions. As I said, these are _loong_ discussions, better to be
left for a meeting on a rainy day in a small Viennaise cafe, over pastries and
hot tea. However, let me say this much:

Every European country has prejudices about the other ones, and, of course,
about the US. These are not well-known in the US, who tend to lump Europeans
together (was IKEA from Sweden or Norway?) except for some simplistic
stereotypes, i.e. Paris is the city of love, Germans make great cars, you can
smoke pot in Netherlands, etc. etc. It's like the Chinese denoting all Europe
as "Westerners". My favorite stereotype quote comes from _Shibumi_ by
Trevenian:

"But even I am forced to admit that they [the French] are a ridiculous people,
just as one must confess that the British are bungling, the Italians
incompetent, the American neurotic, the Germans romantically savage, the Arabs
vicious, the Russians barbaric, and the Dutch make cheese."

The interesting thing is that there's always some truth in stereotypes. The
thinking man's job is to find the percentage of truth.

P.S. Kieslowski's *White" is a movie that I like, that addresses some of the
issues of living in France (and being married to a French woman)

