WHAT FRANCE GETS RIGHT
Recent news has publicized France’s problems: street rebellions over a rise in the retirement age, the fatal police shooting of a 17-year-old, the uprising of the “gilets jaunes” (“yellow vests”) demonstrating for economic justice and institutional political reform.
Yet in some ways France is doing well. France’s high-speed and green rail network in evidence since the 1980s is enviable. It also generates low-carbon electricity, thanks to its nuclear plants, which provide 66% of the nation’s power.
The French poverty rate is half that of the US. Nursery education is now compulsory from the age of three. The French live six years longer on average than Americans, and far fewer are obese. To pay for its social advances France has higher taxes as a share of GDP than any other OECD country except for
Denmark.
France is no paradise by any means. But it is a big nation (pop. 68 million) doing a relatively good job for its people.
Source: The Economist, 7/29/23