| The Editorial page of the Webmaster (#3) |
WARNING : On this website, I am trying to give balanced points of view. BUT : as a Frenchman, I have my own strong personal opinions. I don't know if they are representative but they are mine. See also my resume. Philippe ROCHEFORT |
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 Read Rochefort's "Diary of an old student" |
Moral (for others) and business (for me) : a typical American mix? At the end of 2010, there was a bid in California for a $ 45 billion fast-train line project. Several competitors, with serious credentials were interested : Siemens (German), Hitachi (Japanese), SNCF (French) and a few others. A California politician, Bob Blumenfield, demanded that the SNCF apologize for its role in WW2, when French Jews were deported to Germany in its trains which were requisitioned by the Nazis. This raises two comments. First, you can observe that the same politician did not ask the Japanese company to apologize for Pearl Harbor or the German company to apologize for Auschwitz. No, only the French (read more on French-bashing). Second, does this politician have any idea about how conceivable it was for the SNCF in 1942 to say to the occupying army : "You want our trains to take these people to the German border : we are sorry but we disapprove of what you are doing so we suggest that you take your own trains, which are currently carrying your troops to Russia, to do the job. Please, do not insist : for us it is a matter of principle." Anybody who can imagine what it is to be occupied by a foreign army can only laugh. Ask the Iraqis. For sure, the Germans would have said to anybody saying that : "OK, you guys go on the train with them". One must recall that, after France surrendered in 1940, the armistice treaty with Germany included provisions about trains and other facilities which could be requisitioned with no limits. Of course. By the way, who will benefit from this absurd demand of apology ? An American company ? American Airlines ? Who knows but for me it is more a matter of (American) business than a matter of ethics. (January 2011) By French standards, Americans have a very strange behavior as far as food is concerned. Rather than a moment of enjoyment, the normal meals seems to pose a whole series of problems for them. Before they eat anything, they keep asking themselves : Do I really like it ? Is it good ? Is it clean ? Is it good for my diet ? etc... The French skip this stage : they just eat what's there and see if they enjoyed it. I've had many guests in my life but Americans are, by far, the worst. You never know if they are going to eat or not what you offer them. French guests, if they are well brought up, just eat what's ON their plate WHEREAS Americans always look suspicious, afraid and/or disgusted. And the French do not have these extraordinaries allergies that any American seems to have (to shrimps, to anything red, to nuts, to anything begining with the letter "z", to red wine, or white wine, to anything green, etc...). I remember once I had to drive in the middle of the night to the emergency ward of an hospital where one of my American students had been admitted. She did not speak French but did not want to be treated by a French doctor because she feared he did not know to cure what she had. Asked about her mysterious illness she said she was allergic to champagne and she had had a lot of it. In France, this "illness" is very well-known and we treat it with a traditional therapy : 1/ throw up if necessary, 2/ aspirin and a glass of water, 3/ sleep. But Americans have all sorts of allergies which apparently did not cross the Atlantic. So if you are invited by a French person or eat with a French family, please remember the following rules :
See more DOs&DONTs and more tips on food. Back to top of the page. "L'Affaire Bettencourt" : a (typically) French story Some notions, familiar to Anglo-Saxons are very foreign to the French. Read this story. Mr.Woerth. is a minister of the French Government in charge of the Budget and the Tax Administration. In this responsibility, he oversees all tax enquiries. He is also the treasurer of UMP, the biggest French political (majority) party. In this responsibility, he collects money from his very rich friends for his party. His wife, Mrs.Woerth. is a banker. Her (only) client is Mrs.Bettencourt. the third richest French taxpayer (who owns L'Oréal) ; Mrs.Woerth manages her investments. It turns out that, in the past few years, Mrs.Bettencourt, who is 88, made gifts to a photographer friend for a total amount of more than one billion dollars! Her daughter took the case to court on the ground that the photographer took advantage of her age to take her money. It is revealed that the butler of Mrs.Bettencourt had taped her conversations for a couple of years : it shows that there is no doubt that there was a case of tax fraud for 100 million Euros or more ; the boss of Mrs.Woerth knows that. Questions (from reporters or members of the parliament) to Mr.Woerth : "do you think there was a conflict of interest between your function as a Minister of Budget and your function as a treasurer of UMP ?" Answer: "I do not see what you are talking about". Question to Mrs.Woerth. "do you think that there was a conflict of interest between being the wife of the Minister of Budget and the financial advisor of a tax cheater ?". Answer : "now that you tell me that, I think there could have been something like that, but it did not cross my mind before". Conclusion : the concept of "conflict of interest" is un-French! Now let's move to another Anglo-Saxon notion. The same week, a magazine revealed that another member of the Government, M.Blanc, had smoked, over a period of a year or so, a 12,000 Euros worth of cigars, paid by the taxpayer. Another one had obtained a building permit for a surface twice bigger than allowed by urban regulation, another one had rented a private plane for more than 116 000 Euros for a trip from the Caribbean Islands when he could have traveled on a regular flight, another one had loaned to her family her official apartment that she did not use. A former minister of the same government who had lost her job last year had to reveal that she was paid (in addition to a substantial retirement pension) almost 10,000 Euros per month "to write a report" (which still has to be written…). This did not take place in a banana republic, but in Paris, France. In France, it is considered normal to enjoys little perks when you are in power or close to it. All these people are sincerely shocked if you tell them they are dishonest : for them, they did not accept any bribe, they just enjoyed the normal benefits of power. It is said that, since he was elected to public offices in the early 1960s, former President Chirac never paid a cent for his and his family's personal expenses (housing, food, travel). Conclusion : the concept of "Chinese Wall" between what you do for yourself and what you do for others as an elected official is un-french too! One can see how far this country is from a real democracy ; needless to say the Left behaved exactly the same way, as illustrated under the reign of Mitterrand. (Sources : the whole press, last week of June 2010) |
Chief of IMF in jail : what the French do not understand....The arrest in New-York (May 14, 2011) of Dominique Strauss-Kahn for alleged rape of a maid of the hotel where he was staying has put France in a state of shock. First because he was considered, one year before presidential elections, as the only leader of the Socialist Party who could beat President Sarkozy, then because he is accused of what would be, if proved true, an unforgivable crime but also because some aspects of US police and justice are so different between the two countries. First, the French do not believe people's word as much as Americans do and it is not big deal to lie (remember another politician, Bernard Tapie, who had said he was somewhere one day when it had been proved he was somewhere else, saying in court "I lied but it was in good faith") : therefore between what the maid said and what he said, both would be considered equally irrelevant, in terms of proof. Second, the French have a very respectful attitude regarding powerful people : you do not treat a big leader like a petty drug dealer (in La Santé, the Paris jailhouse, there is a wing called the "Quartier VIP" where the rich and the famous are jailed together, with much better living conditions). Third because Americans have the accusatory procedure in which, at the beginning, you see only the prosecutor and the charges against the defendant ; the concept of "presomption d'innocence" forbids to humiliate a suspect. For this reason, it would be against French law to take the picture of someone hand-cuffed at this stage of the case : it would be an unacceptable humiliation. Finally, the accepted level of sexual misbehavior is higher in France. In a previous incident of probably the same kind he had with a young French journalist, the victim's mother discouraged her from taking him to court, saying : "he did not actually rape you", because for the French (not for the French law but for Mainstreet France) there is no rape when there is no penetration and no sperm. In this incredible case, which is just beginning, the French are appalled, not supportive at all of the suspect, but they feel very uncomfortable with the way the case is treated by US police and US courts. It is a breach of the defendant's privacy! For the French, the perp walk is scandalous. (May 2011) - More about sex. Being sick in France : a chauvinistic anecdote…. My son lives in Canada. Last week as he and his family were touring in France, their 4-month old baby became ill in the morning, two days before New Year's Eve. They called a doctor who gave them an appointment at 3 pm the same day. He examined the baby for at least 20 minutes, diagnosed a bronchiolitis, prescribed drugs and a few physical therapy sessions. He charged 27 Euros and did not bother about the fact that the parents were not part of the French Health system. The same day at 7 pm the physical therapist came HOME for the first session and charged 20 Euros for it. Two days later, in the morning, the physical therapist observed that the baby was developing an earache. They made an appointment with the doctor at 5:30 pm and, as he thought it would be safer to have the baby examined in a hospital, the baby was admitted the same day at 6:30 and examined by a doctor a half hour later. After all the necessary tests had been performed, a prescription written, the hospital apologized : as the parents were not members of the French system, a bill had to be sent later. Its amount is not known yet but I would be very surprised it it was above 20 or 30 Euros. The French football team : a good image of today's France ? The national team got its selection to the World Cup thanks to a goal scored with the hand of Thierry Henry : millions of people saw it on TV (but not the referee…). Once in South Africa they scored 0-0 with Uruguay and lost 0-2 to Mexico : in both games they played a college-level game. When their coach talked to them like coaches generally do, one player, Nicolas Anelka, answered with such a vulgar and horrible insult that he was expelled from the team and sent back to France. The next day, the team went on strike, refused the training session and forced the coach to the humiliation of reading to the press their protest against Anelka's sanction. The day after that, they played their last game against South Africa and, logically, lost by 1-2 after having played a high-school-level game. They left South Africa humiliated and ridiculed. More on French attitudes and irksome France. Another lecture by the New York Times or Where are the real Talibans ?
My conclusion : The USA are a very religious country (some say : very sanctimonious) and we are a secular country. You see religion everywhere…. Do your homework, study other countries, look at facts instead of being arrogant New-Yorkers…. If you wonder why there is so much anti-Americanism in the world, you have here an excellent example of what fuels anti-Americanism worldwide. Mind your own business and no more lectures, please ! (Jan.2010) Read about religion in France, about provocations in the name of religious freedom, about French bashing, about the US press and try my insularity test. See Harriet’s blog about the same article. |
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