Why France is the China of Europe
My Upbringing
When I was 10 years old my family moved from New Zealand to France. At the time I didn’t speak a word of French or look French, my facial features were clearly British so at a glance you could see I was a foreigner.
Primary School
I was put into a local primary school to do my last year of primary education but I didn’t understand much of what was going on as the teacher only spoke French and clearly didn’t want me there. Also, I wasn’t exactly brimming with confidence as my stepfather at the time was abusive and would take out his anger on my sister and me.
It was very hard to learn anything those first few years seeing as since I didn’t fit in I would get bullied at school, often getting hit or punched, then I would go home to where my stepdad was waiting to try out some creative new way he had up come up with to torture us. I spent most of my time at that age being scared of what was coming next. I guess compared to many who suffered abuse I got off lightly because it was never sexual and he was careful to generally not hurt me in a way that would permanently damage my body. My only reminder of that time is my crooked nose from when he broke it and it didn’t set straight.
Middle School
After I completed that first year of primary school my mother enrolled me in a middle school that had a small international component to it where I had two classes that were taught in English. The bullying/abuse combo continued there but slowly improved over time as my stepdad spent less time at home. Eventually, when I was fourteen I threatened my mother with physical violence against her if she let him come back, which I could do because I was starting to match her in size and strength.
By this time I had lost the majority of four years of learning. Of course, I had learnt some stuff during this time but certainly not enough to keep up and my French was still very poor. Many other kids who had moved to France at a similar age as me had been able to pick up the language far better than me but had done so in less than two years.
High School
By the time I was in High School, I was lucky enough that I had access to a computer with internet access. It wasn’t a good computer, but it allowed me to browse the internet and do research and that is all I needed to start self-learning. In my mind opinion, I owe my education to all the people who share their knowledge on the internet or make YouTube videos explaining how to do things. Even though I have not gone to school since I dropped out of high school I have not stopped researching and learning every day and that has only been possible thanks to all the people who have shared knowledge for free.
Why My Perspective Matters
Because of my situation, I was never “enchanted” by Paris like so many are. Also coming from New Zealand where life is better in so many ways I could never just accept France’s faults because I knew things didn't have to be that way. When I would travel back to New Zealand to visit family I was able to compare between the two countries.
Also, I was just a kid. Many of these issues are not problems that you are likely to face as a tourist or an adult. But kids get taken advantage of and their struggles are ignored. They have no voice and nowhere to run. They can’t open a bank account, get a job and live on their own. Especially in France, you are at the mercy of your guardian until the day you turn 18.
The bad
Architecture
A significant part of French culture is having a great deal of pride in their history and accomplishments. Like how in the past they built huge monuments and many detailed and beautiful buildings. They consider themselves one of the greatest nations on earth because that is what they are taught in school and what their architecture says about them. The issue is that all of these architectural achievements were completed hundreds of years ago and there has not been a lot to brag about since.
Presentation
Arriving in Paris can be quite a shock, especially when coming back from a holiday. When you land at Charles de Gaulle airport you can see it is dirty and ugly. The airport is mostly just concrete slabs with no effort to make it look nice, warm, or welcoming. Then when you need to get into Paris the trip is horrible. The train takes you through some of the poorest parts of Paris and it is all dirty and messy, including the landscape. You can often see slums (bidonvilles) when looking out of the window.
Once you arrive in Paris the main train station most people get off at is Gare du Nord. It is one of the dirtiest and ugliest places in Paris. There are homeless people everywhere, it smells like pee and is notoriously unsafe. Be wary about being there outside of rush hour as it is common to get attacked or harassed.
Homelessness
This brings up one of the most telling things about France. The homelessness problem. In most civilised countries there are a lot of programs to support homeless people and help them get back on their feet. And if they are not able to be re-integrated into society then there are systems in place to give them the basic necessities for them to live a simple life with community housing programs and homeless shelters.
However, in France, there are droves of homeless people everywhere. Every winter when the temperature drops below zero the death toll of the homeless spikes with the streets littered with homeless people who have frozen to death on the footpaths. And yes, when I was living there I did, on several occasions, see dead frozen homeless people whilst walking around. Also, there is no plausible deniability here as this problem is prominently talked about on French news every time there is a cold spike with them reporting on the numbers. I have only ever encountered such disdain and apathy for homeless people in one other place, China.
Shopping
One of the great particularities of French people is often when you go into a shop the staff will be angry and rude towards you as this means they have to work. This includes small shops that are owner operated as well as supermarkets.
Racism
After World War 2 France had a labour shortage due to the large number of males who had died and this was impeding reconstruction efforts. To address this they offered French citizenship to people from the colonies if they came and worked in France. There was a large influx of Africans who took up the offer. However, the French had not thought this through because once they didn’t need them anymore they didn’t actually want them to stay. They would have liked to send them back to Africa but couldn’t because they had given them French citizenship.
The solution they came up with was to build new developments of apartment buildings that were affordable and geographically distant from the main metropolitan centres. They also made sure that public transport between the cities and these new developments were non existent or very unreliable. What they made were effectively ghettos.
In the movie The Intouchables you can see a little bit of what that kind of life is like.
Public transport safety
These ghettos are still there today and bigger than ever. The one thing that has changed is that the cities have grown and now they are part of the city rather than being geographically removed, which has made it a lot easier for the inhabitants to travel in and out of them.
When I was a teenager, like many of my friends, I had to take the RER train every day to go to school. This was always a dangerous activity especially if you weren't travelling at peak traffic time when there were adults going or coming home from work (and even then I never once saw an adult step in to try to help me or another kid from being beaten up). Gangs of young adults/teenagers from the ghetto (Racaille) would ride the trains going up and down it looking for kids to beat up and potentially steal their stuff.
Like many of my friends and acquaintances, I was attacked many times. I have a close friend whose skull was fractured and another friend who broke both of his elbows while being attacked in such a way.
It never really seemed to be about the stealing but more about taking out their anger on people they viewed as being more privileged, which honestly, fair enough. French society is designed to give these people no way of escaping their situation…
Police
Police in France are very detached from the bigger picture of what they are actually supposed to do. Not only does this profession tend to attract people who watch too many action movies, the situation is worsened by the fact that their performance is measured in KPIs. Add to that the fact that they get a lot of their funding by issuing fines you have a recipe for disaster….
Things that have all happened to me or I have seen with my own 2 eyes:
- I was lost in Paris in the Metro and at one of the stations I saw a group of officers (Gendarmes) standing around chatting. I went to ask them for directions. Instead of helping me they formed a circle around me and demanded they see my train ticket (I was not in the paying part of the station yet). I showed it to them, and they said it wasn’t valid. They then tried to give me a fine for not having a valid ticket in the metro but I pushed past them and ran off.
- There is an unbelievable number of speed cameras on the roads there, the only place worse is Spain. The cameras are not put in places where people are likely to crash either, they are set up as traps to catch people out. One of the most egregious tricks I have seen is having a straight stretch of motorway where the speed limit was set to 110KM/h. Then at one point you have a new sign saying it has changed to 130Km/h so you speed up then about 500 meters later there is another sign, this one partially obscured behind a bush, saying the speed limit is back to 110km/h and immediately behind it is a speed camera…. The trick is that because you just changed speed you probably wouldn’t be looking out for another speed sign so soon which catches many people off guard.
- It is also common for police to dress up in full camouflage and lie in the bushes on the side of the road with speed cameras. Also, police won’t chase you down for speeding or try to stop a driver in a dangerous situation, they are happy to just send you a fine in the mail, so clearly, there is no intent to actually help the community.
- I have also seen the Gendarmes (militarised police) driving around in their vans in full riot gear, hanging out of the windows flexing their guns, and trying to look as cool as possible.
History Lessons
In France, World War 2 is taught in such a way that French children are manipulated into thinking about their history in a rather misleading way.
In primary school World War 2 is explained leaving out a lot of detail and putting France in a very positive light. The basic summary of events is explained, a.k.a. Germany snuck around French defences by going through Belgium and rushed to Paris, and took over before France had time to do anything about it. Then the majority of the focus is on teaching kids about the French Resistance and how French people ran vast underground organisations sabotaging the Germans and causing massive amounts of damage greatly weakening the German occupying forces. Then when General De Gaulle returned to France from England the French army had the help of the British and Americans who helped them retake France. A lot of emphasis is placed on how the French army marched through Paris first to liberate it. From the way it’s explained you would think the French did all the fighting and the others just came along for the ride.
When you are in middle school they go over it again and you learn more of the truth. When the French army was defeated, they made many strategic mistakes like placing most of their forces spread out against the east border and despite receiving lots of advice from their own military commanders saying they should protect the border Belgium didn’t do it for political reasons.
In high school, you finally learn the truth. That France did basically nothing in WW2, that the resistance was just a tiny group of people, it did basically nothing and it was mostly just people running around giving secret messages to each other. There were many collaborators and women who dated or married Germans during the occupation. Generally speaking, most people had no problem ratting out their Jewish neighbours to the Germans. And when De Gaulle retook France and Paris his presence was purely symbolic, he was at the head of the convoy entering Paris to give a defeated France a much-needed psychological boost and make them feel some sense of pride like the situation had not been an utter disaster. Once the Germans had been pushed out there was a huge wave of revenge (épuration) that took place against collaborators and the women who had dated or married Germans, with many being stripped naked and forced to parade around the streets or in many cases far worse punishments.
I understand the logic behind choosing to teach it like this. It can seem like it is a lot to take in for little kids, to think that their country suffered a humiliating defeat, especially seeing as so much of France's national identity is caught up in being a nation of conquerors and is one of the most powerful nations in the world. The problem is that French children are bought up with the image that French people are like superheroes. By the time they learn the truth, they have already effectively been brainwashed and don’t really accept that things weren't how they were taught when they were in Primary school. So French adults tend to have out-of-control egos which makes many of them insufferable.
Xenophobia
France and Britain have traditionally hated each other and many of their respective insults originate from their hatred of the other. When I would walk in the street in Paris speaking English people would call out in French saying “You’re in France, speak French!” (“T’es en France, parle français!”).
Every election cycle basically goes the same way. In the first round of voting, either the left or right mainstream parties get most of the votes so they go through to the second round. The second most popular party is always the extreme right racist Nazi party (Front National) which has the second most votes. Everyone in France panics realising if they don’t vote against the Nazi party they are in big trouble, so they always just scrape by without putting Nazis in power. Every. Single. Time.
But it just goes to show how many people there are in France with those views.
Traffic and Transit
In Paris, people in traffic will selfishly push through into the middle of an intersection causing a deadlock, just so they can get through faster but worsening the traffic jam.
In train stations a shocking number of people are in a hurry, sprinting through the train station to get on to the next train even though there are trains every few minutes.
Weather
The weather in Paris is awful. Sometimes it will stay grey for 9 months of the year. The lack of sunlight makes all the plants have very dull muted colours. Going from France to New Zealand is always a bit of a shock, when you step out of the airport in New Zealand you feel like you just stepped out of a black and white TV show and are seeing colour for the first time.
Government
Doing any kind of government admin stuff is a nightmare in France, although I have heard it has been getting better in recent years. But god forbid you try and do anything that isn’t completely standard then you will get pushed into an infinite loop of going talk to some other agency until you eventually break down in tears and they actually do their job so that you stop crying (seriously, for most women this is the only way).
Employment
Everything is structured around diplomas and certifications. You can’t get a job, promotion, or any opportunity unless you have the right diplomas. It is ingrained in everyone’s minds that this is the case and how it should be. It makes it extremely hard for people who didn’t fit well into the school system to make it anywhere in life.
However, the French people who break out of this oppressive system are extremely hardworking, extremely motivated, and dynamic people. Truly some of the best people you can have to run your projects.
The Good
Authority
French people are very mistrustful of the government and authority. This has worked out well for them when it comes to certain vaccines being pushed out prematurely when the threat of disease was low (H1N1 for example). Also, they are very protective of their human rights and have a strong sense of justice so will push back hard against their government doing things that are not in their best interests.
Religion
Since France started regulating and pushing back on religion a few hundred years ago the country has had a long time to mature into a very anti-religious society. Most churches no longer run regular services and consolidate services in each area to a single church. So in terms of phasing out religion, they are well ahead of the curve.
Healthcare
Healthcare has some good and some bad. It is cheap and affordable but also often goes too far. Growing up it seemed like almost everyone had some kind of mental health diagnosis and was taking antidepressants. For the vast majority, it seemed like they weren't depressed because they had a mental health problem but rather because they were trapped in a system that doesn’t allow them to progress much even if they work hard.
Science and Research
There is a lot of government-funded research, including science centres dedicated to the pursuit of science for no other reason than for the sake of research. It is possible to be a career researcher there without any teaching obligations, although I don’t think the pay is very exceptional.
Information Technology
Many French people contribute to the open-source community and have helped make major innovations that are very significant in the world of computing. For example:
- VLC media player
- Major contributions to GNU /Linux
- Key gens or hacked versions of popular programs, it is almost a right of passage for French University students to hack one program.
Industry
France is a country where people understand that to make big things you have to work together. Here are some things that they have made that are major achievements and that other countries have purchased:
- Nuclear power plants
- Bullet trains (Thales)
- Spaceships (Ariane)
- Airplanes (Airbus, Snecma)
- Cars (Peugeot, Renault, Citroen, Alpine, Bugatti)
- Large Hadron Collider (joint project with many other countries)
- Pharmaceuticals (Sanofi)
Conclusion
Even though I no longer live in France and would never go back there to live, now that I am an adult with money, going back to visit family and friends is a very different experience.
As a tourist, I am no longer really exposed to a lot of the pain points that you are faced with when trying to integrate into French society as a foreigner. Also now that I can afford to travel by car rather than public transport I am no longer exposed to many of the dangerous situations I once was.
Also when I have gone back I have noticed that French people seem to speak English more and are more accepting of foreigners and other cultures. Hopefully, globalisation will continue to have a positive influence on French mentality and culture and maybe in the distant future, it will be a place where I will be able to live again.
The reason I titled this article “Why France is the China of Europe” is a lot of the problems I have listed above are also problems that are present in China. When I lived in China most foreigners had a strong culture shock and found it hard to adapt to all these societal changes. However, the French people I met had no trouble at all. For them, the only real difference was the language and the food.
Notes
“Keny Arkana — Entre ciment et belle étoile” is a music album that does a very good job of illustrating the feelings and struggle of what it is like to be someone who doesn’t fit into the established French system. If you speak good French I highly recommend it.
