This page contains Facts and Figures about France and the French. Some are significant, other less so....

• Miscellanerous quotes
• Europe

Post-Brexit relations : the final Brexit deal was signed Dec.25, 2020 between the UK and the European Union. Here is a list of the main events, good or (most likely) bad in UK/EU since. (to be completed, alas)

• June 2021 : British PM Boris Johnson anounces that "the UK will not obey the treaty, which must be re-negociated".
• More later

About protectionism : in 2013, European and American complaints to WTO are strangely symetrical (Source : Le Monde May 15, 2013) :

About war, Fletcher Crossman, an Englishman, writes (International Herald Tribune,Jan.28, 2004) : "(This) feeling has never been totally expunged from the European psyche. However clear-cut the rationale sounds at the start of a war, the reality always results in atrocities, injustices and moral ambiguity...... America emerged from the devastation in a pre-eminent position, its infrastructure intact. .... America is the brave young soldier, with shining eyes and a firm jaw, marching towards a battle that will make the world a better place. Europe is the bitter old veteran sitting on the sidewalk, his medals collecting dust somewhere, shaking his head knowingly as the young soldier passes by. Both views are valid and both are forged in the furnace of experience.... Perhaps Europeans don't have the most courageous of instincts. Not anymore. They still live in the shadow of two unthinkable wars, and have learnt that patriotism and courageous instincts have too often resulted in corruption, destruction and death.'

 About France and the French

• Thomas Edison (in 1889) :

  Q. How are you impressed with Paris, Mr.Edison ?

  A. Oh, I’m dazed. My head’s still in a muddle, and I reckon it will take me at least a year recover my senses […] what struck me so far chiefly is the absolute laziness of everybody over here. When do these people work ? What do they work at ? People here seem to have established an elaborate system of loafing. I don’t understand it at all.

• "Vous les Français, vous oscillez entre l'arrogance et l'autoflagellation, reussissant même à cultiver les deux à la fois. Vous pratiquez l'arrogance, dernier vestige du temps de votre puissance perdue et vous vous flagellez, complexés par l'obsession de ne pas parvenir à ce que vous imaginez être l'efficacité américaine. A titre de francophone du Québec dont les racines françaises remontent au XVIIème siècle, je ne vous laisserai pas me renvoyer de vous cette image déprimante d'un peuple qui semble se convaincre que ses forces sont ses faiblesses et vice-versa.Tant que je parlerai français, que je lirai en français, que je rêverai en français, je m'autorise le droit de vous critiquer. Car je refuse que vous bradiez une partie du patrimoine culturel que je partage avec vous" (Denise Bombardier)

• "What's a Frenchman ? An Italian in a bad mood" (Jean Cocteau)

• "Every man has two countries, his own and France" (Thomas Jefferson)

• "If France was a stock, I'd sell it" (Thomas Friedman)

• " There is a nation that the French treat with more grudge that Germany, more anger than Italy, more unfairness than Britain. It is toward the French that the French express the most savage animosity, more ceaseless and more inequitable than with the citizens of any other nation : Gallus gallo lupus " (John H.Motley)

• "The French constitute the most brilliant and the most dangerous nation in Europe and the best qualified in turn to become an object of admiration, hatred, pity or terror but never indifference" (Alexis de Tocqueville)

• "France has neither winter, summer, nor morals. Apart from that, it is a fine country" (Mark Twain)

• "I do not dislike the French for the vulgar antipathy between neighbouring nations, but for their insolent and unfounded airs of superiority" (Horace Walpole)

• "I do not believe there is another city on earth so beautiful as Paris nor another people with such an appreciation of the beautiful as the French..... The light was different from anything I had known. The shadows were luminous, more reflected light. Even under the bridges there was a certain luminosity." (Edward Hopper, after he stayed in Paris in 1906-1907)

• "America is my country, and Paris is my hometown" (Gertrude Stein)

 About America and Americans

• (a strongly prejudiced one) "America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilization" (Georges Clémenceau)

• "when good Americans die, they go to Paris" (Oscar Wilde)

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Europe economic strength : the 28 European countries as compared (1994-2014) to the USA and the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India,China) :

		2003	2013
Number of universities among the 200 first (Shanghai ranking)	Europe	68	62
	BRICs	2	8
	USA	93	85

(Source : Le Monde 15/5/2014, IMF, WTO data)

• Do you feel European ? Poll (Eurobaromètre, April 2000) of 16,000 European citizens : Question 1 : Do you feel exclusively European? European and national ? National and European ? Exclusively national ? Question 2 : Favorable opinion toward the European Union ?

	Fra.	Ger.	Aus.	Bel.	Den.	Spa.	Fin.	Gre.	Ire.	Ita.	Lux.	Net.	Por.	GB.	Swe.	Total
Question 1 : National and European	48	37	42	42	37	53	35	38	38	56	41	41	42	24	32	42
Question 2 : favorable	50	49	45	56	56	66	47	61	84	62	83	74	70	31	39	51

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• "The battle for Britain's euro entry lies in exploding the myths of Brussels' power" : The Independent (Sept.17, 2003) wrote a very interesting article with the following comparison :

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Harriet Welty Rochefort writes articles and books about France and the French. Order her books :

• "Joie de Vivre", Secrets of Wining, Dining and Romancing like the French, St.Martin's Press, New York, 2012
• "French Toast, An American in Paris Celebrates The Maddening Mysteries of the French", St.Martin's Press, New York, 1999
• "French Fried, The Culinary Capers of An American in Paris", St.Martin's Press, New York, 2001

More on Harriet's books (excerpts, upcoming events, testimonials, etc..)