I think although we mostly hate the French there is something about them that we secretly admire.
My wife is working there at the moment due home tomorrow, apparently they are all on strike over raising the retirement age from 60 to 62.
Imagine that over here, we'll just moan grumble and whinge but carry on resined to our fate.
Think I'll move there.
Yes, I'm afraid you are right. The French may be rude, arrogant and insular, but they are not stupid. The french, even ordinary workers have employment conditions that the Brits used to enjoy (hour long lunch, early retirement, better pensions, 40 hour week), but the Brits won't stick together, so have lost them.
The French fight to retain quality of life, something that the Brits lost years ago without even noticing. French food is an art, British people don't care about food. They may have 10 grand kitchens, but British women use them to warm up pizzas, chicken nuggets and Indian takeaways. They don't have the first clue about food.
The British are stupid in other ways, fighting other people's wars for no resullt (Iran Afghanistan), whilst the French stand aside and let us get on with it.
Many British industries (car manufacturing, fishing, nuclear power, electricity generatin) are now owned and run by the French, whilst we have very little left.
British hospitals are some of the dirtiest and chaotically run in the Western world. French hospitals are some of the best in the world. Our schools are ill disciplined and standards are getting ever lower (despite increasing exam passes
), whilst French schools are on the whole well run with very high levels of REAL academic achievement. French roads are some of the best in Europe, the roads in my area, and probably others, are falling apart and full of pot holes.
These are just some examples. We laugh at the French, but we don't really have anything like the quality of life that they do. Yes, taxes are higher, but they see the benefit of these taxes in public services that are of a high standard. Our taxes are going to get higher, but this won't change our quality of life (in fact it will probably go down), its to pay for the lunacy of 13 years of a failed Labour regime.
