I can (and will) give you all sorts of stats and stories to prove that the French have created an unsustainable society, but the best evidence of all comes from an opinion column. Along with what this writer actually says, it's where he says it that's shocking: The New York Times.
"I lived for about a decade, on and off, in France and later moved to the United States. Nobody in their right mind would give up the manifold sensual, aesthetic and gastronomic pleasures offered by French savoir-vivre for the unrelenting battlefield of American ambition were it not for one thing: possibility.
You know possibility when you breathe it. For an immigrant, it lies in the ease of American identity and the boundlessness of American horizons after the narrower confines of European nationhood and the stifling attentions of the European nanny state, which has often made it more attractive not to work than to work."
The key word he used was "possibility" because it really sums up everything that capitalism is about. You stay at work an extra hour because of the possibility that your boss might notice and eventually promote you. You put your home on the line to start your own business because of the possibility that you might become the next Microsoft or Google. You spend your life savings to send your children to college because of the possibility that they will be presented with a life full of endless possibilities.
As the Times columnist said, France has lost that -- and it's not hard to understand why. Archaic laws, senseless social programs, poor (but free) education, enclaves filled with disenfranchised immigrants and unemployed youths, and massive public debt have combined to make France a nice place to visit, but a pretty depressing place to live.
I talk a lot about how our government -- to borrow a term from the great economist Thomas Sowell -- can't think "beyond stage one." They try to solve problems with obvious solutions without thinking about the consequences of those solutions. But we didn't invent that kind of narrow, short-term thinking...France did.
France decided that the best way to keep their citizens working was to create all kinds of laws and regulations for employers to follow. Most of us know about their 35-hour work week and long summer vacations, but that's only the start. The number of rules that French companies have to follow in order to hire or fire someone would put the New York City Teachers' Union to shame.
But what France forgot was that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The consequence of all those laws to prevent unemployment was massive unemployment, especially among the young. It's really just common sense -- if you can hire and fire at will, you are much more likely to take a chance on new employees, especially young ones without much experience. But when "at will" instead turns into ironclad, virtually lifelong commitments, you're much more careful about whom you hire.
The numbers show that this is exactly what's happened as 23 percent of young people in France are unemployed. To fight that trend, France's former prime minister created another set of regulations, called the "first job contract." It gives employers the ability to hire anyone under 26 years old for what is essentially a two-year trial period. During that time the draconian state employment rules are loosened, enabling companies to take more chances.
Now, 64 percent of all French youths aged 15-24 take part in the temporary work program within a year of completing their education -- but many of them hate the idea. Having grown up in a country where a job was always viewed as a right, they believe the "first job contract" program victimizes them and, as they say in their protests, "institutionalizes insecurity."
Maybe one reason why they say that is that -- pardon my French -- they're not that smart. After all, most students in France go to schools that are virtually free and have no restrictions on entry (including no minimum test scores or grade point average). In addition, teachers are government employees, which makes sense, considering that over 25 percent of all jobs in France are in the public sector.
The result of this wonderfully non-discriminatory, sunshine-and-lollipops approach to education is a drop-out rate of 40 percent, lecture halls that are bursting at the seams, universities without any interest in research, and the distinction of not even placing one school in the top 40 of the most recent worldwide rankings. France has only three schools in the top hundred.
Combining terrible educations with a government that acts like a countrywide HR department from hell does not set the French up for economic success. And it shows. While the government takes 44 percent of GDP in taxes every year (the euro-zone average is closer to 40 percent), it's not nearly enough. Someone has to pay for all the free education, health care, and short work weeks -- and, right now, it's France's lenders. A government-commissioned report pointed out that, without drastic action, France's debt load will go from 66 percent of GDP today to 80 percent by 2010 to a catastrophic 100 percent in 2014.
Is America destined for the same fate? If we keep going the way we are, absolutely. For proof, just listen to the way a recent Economist article described the general attitude there:
"[In France] there is a lingering culture of suspicion of profit, and a demonisation of business leaders, encouraged by a mainstream left that still equates efficiency with injustice."
Now ask yourself: Is America moving toward that way of thinking, with all of its laws and feel-good regulations, or away from it?
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