Manners Matter.
“During the 17th century, in France, manners became a political issue. King Louis XIV and his predecessors, in collecting together the nobility of France to live with the sovereign at Versailles, instituted a sort of school of manners.
At the palace, the courtiers lived under the despotic surveillance of the King. If you displeased a Louis, he would simply “not see you” the following day. And not being “seen” by the King was tantamount to ceasing to count, at Versailles.
The new manners — both the formal rules of protocol and precedence and the unspoken, more profoundly enculturated rules like table manners — were seen increasingly as ways in which one did not offend other people. …
Manners Matter.
“During the 17th century, in France, manners became a political issue. King Louis XIV and his predecessors, in collecting together the nobility of France to live with the sovereign at Versailles, instituted a sort of school of manners.
At the palace, the courtiers lived under the despotic surveillance of the King. If you displeased a Louis, he would simply “not see you” the following day. And not being “seen” by the King was tantamount to ceasing to count, at Versailles.
The new manners — both the formal rules of protocol and precedence and the unspoken, more profoundly enculturated rules like table manners — were seen increasingly as ways in which one did not offend other people. …
Four French IPOs on the NASDAQ in just 24 months (Criteo, LDR, Cellectis, DBVTechnologies), American VCs investing in France (BlaBlaCar, La Ruche, Believe Digital, Scality, ShowRoomPrive), three new Unicorns (BlaBlaCar, Sigfox, Teads), US market M&As (by Microsoft, Zendesk, Salesforce, Facebook, Adobe), French venture capital industry ranking second in Europe, the forthcoming creation of the world’s largest incubator La Halle Freyssinet in Paris, success stories by French entrepreneurs in the US (Lending Club, Symphony, Tango, PeopleDoc, SmartRecruiter), an American CEO — Cisco’s John Chambers, — declaring that “France is the next big thing.” …
Sacrebleu! What is happening in France?
The talent pool, France’s best asset
France has a strong scientific tradition: 13 Nobel prizes in physics, 8 in chemistry, 13 in medicine. French mathematicians have won a quarter of Fields Medals awarded since 1923. The higher education system is efficient and free. Oui! You heard it, free! The system now produces around 80,000 engineers and 70,000 PhDs — half of them foreign born — per year. Such educational efforts have created a 1,000,000+ strong engineering workforce, the largest in Europe alongside Germany. No wonder so many French engineers work at some of the best of America’s high-tech companies, including Apple, Tesla, Facebook, Salesforce and Google. …
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