SuperFrenchie

From this, which truly launched superfrenchie.com 4 years ago:

To this:

Have we gone full circle?

I’m sure that by now you’ve heard of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Obama’s comedy speech, the Wanda Sykes controversy, etc… You probably also heard about the swank after dinner parties, the most famous one being the Bloomberg-Vanity Fair party.

But there’s one thing you may not have heard… At least I hadn’t until I saw it on the French Embassy’s Facebook page: that very exclusive Bloomberg-Vanity Fair party was held at… the French ambassador’s residence. Yes, this was a first.

And look at the guest list: Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod, Jon Favreau, Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher, Natalie Portman, Glenn Close, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Owen Wilson, Rashida Jones, Elizabeth Banks, Eva Longoria, Amy Poehler, Jon Bon Jovi, Ed Westwick, Ludacris, Denis Leary, Katie Couric, David Gregory, David Brooks, David Carr, Steve Kroft, Lara Logan, John King, Chris Matthews…

I even saw a pic of Donald Rumsfeld in there. Yes, the same Donald Rumsfeld who used to decline social invites from Jean-David Levitte, the former ambassador and Rumsfeld’s neighbor.

No question, change is happening in Washington.

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French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde on the Daily Show last night:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Christine Lagarde
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis First 100 Days

What about the beret sequence at the end? Appropriate and funny, or needlessly feeding stupid stereotypes?

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49.4 million Americans are vacation deprived. My question: why is it that we are at the bottom of the charts?

[Read entire survey]

And how much do you think this annoys them:

Worried office workers start earlier (except in France)
The British and Germans are clocking in a quarter of an hour earlier than they used to, but the unflustered French are turning up 14 minutes later

And in the NY Times: Europe’s Solution: Take More Time Off.

Notable quote:

What would Americans do with close to two months of vacation a year?

Exactly!

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From Newsweek: It will take a lot more than SEALs and snipers to defend global shipping and American prestige. What Obama can learn from the French.

Excerpts:

In the dusty pirate havens of Puntland, a province in the country formerly known as the nation of Somalia, today’s Kalashnikov-bearing buccaneers are said to be leery of the French flag. If they’re not, they certainly should be. Three times since April of last year Somali gunmen have seized pleasure boats with French passengers and crews—and all three times, including just last week, the French have negotiated, stalled (in the first case even paid a ransom), then attacked. The French response to Somali piracy is now so well known that “in Puntland they talk about avoiding ‘the French option’,” says John S. Burnett, author of the prescient 2002 study of modern piracy, “Dangerous Waters.” “They know French commandos will come after them,” says Burnett, “and some of these French guys are really tough mothers.” Burnett says that to his knowledge the Somalis have never attacked a cargo ship carrying France’s flag. On Wednesday, the French defense ministry announced that the frigate Nivôse had intercepted and detained 11 pirates on a small “mother ship” about 500 nautical miles east of Mombasa, Kenya. The French Navy had tracked the pirates through the night after using a helicopter to foil their attack on a Liberian-flagged vessel.

[...]

There are lessons for the United States in the French actions, some of which may already have been learned. The dramatic rescue of the American Capt Richard Phillips of the Maersk Alabama on Easter Sunday was carried out with tactics very similar to the French operations. But the most important lessons are about what goes on before the first round is fired, then what comes after.

Looks like there are many who don’t like it when they’re told they could learn lessons from others.

[French hostages arrive in France]

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Talk about rapprochement! According to a new poll by Research 2000 for the Daily Kos, France is viewed favorably by 61% of Americans, with 32% viewing it unfavorably.

Still below the pre-Iraq war level of 79% in 2002, but up from 57% last year in a Rasmussen poll, and way up from 46% and 52% in Pew polls conducted in 2005 and 2006 respectively.

While Democrats view us slightly more favorably than Republicans, let’s note that in the South, unfavorable opinions of France prevail over favorable ones by 51% to 43%. Those “southern” trends are similar to ones expressed towards other symbolic places of “liberalism,” such as San Francisco, New York City, or Europe. Says Kos:

What’s this mean? It means that all that France and Europe demonizing, and all that talk of “San Francisco liberals” and “San Francisco values”, and all that New York bashing (like Rush leaving Manhattan), plays to a very small core of people, and specifically to the conservative’s Southern base.

This is clear evidence that the GOP has become a rump regional party. Because everyone else in America is just scratching their head at all that hatred directed at these places. They like San Francisco a lot. They love France. They think Europe is fantastic. And not even the New York Yankees can get people to hate on the Big Apple. And the more the Rushes and Becks bash those places, the more out of step with the Real America conservatives appear.

They might as well be bashing puppies, apple pie, and moms.

The irony? Even Southerners have a net positive favorability for San Francisco (+6), New York City (+2), and Europe (+2). In other words, even in their regional stronghold, they’re just speaking to a minority.

h/t to Joerg at Atlantic Review.

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Ah, those were the times! 2006, when you could make fun of the fact that 50% of French people did not have faith in the market economy.

We probably haven’t changed much, what with Besancenot and his “new” anti-capitalism party.

Americans, on the other hand…

According to a recent Rasmussen poll, only 53% of American adults believe capitalism is better than socialism. 20% say “socialism” is better. And from my experience, their definition of “socialism” is far more radical than ours.

The number of Americans who believe in free markets is actually down almost 20% from just 3 months ago. Another few months of this crisis and looks like we’ll all be thinking alike!

[Rapprochement]

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Be welcoming:

Show them what you got:

Close the deal:

h/t for pics 2 and 3 to burninghead.

Pretty remarkable comments from Obama at Strasbourg’s town hall meeting:

It’s always harder to forge true partnerships and sturdy alliances than to act alone, or to wait for the action of somebody else. It’s more difficult to break down walls of division than to simply allow our differences to build and our resentments to fester. So we must be honest with ourselves. In recent years we’ve allowed our Alliance to drift. I know that there have been honest disagreements over policy, but we also know that there’s something more that has crept into our relationship. In America, there’s a failure to appreciate Europe’s leading role in the world. Instead of celebrating your dynamic union and seeking to partner with you to meet common challenges, there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive.

But in Europe, there is an anti-Americanism that is at once casual but can also be insidious. Instead of recognizing the good that America so often does in the world, there have been times where Europeans choose to blame America for much of what’s bad.

On both sides of the Atlantic, these attitudes have become all too common. They are not wise. They do not represent the truth. They threaten to widen the divide across the Atlantic and leave us both more isolated. They fail to acknowledge the fundamental truth that America cannot confront the challenges of this century alone, but that Europe cannot confront them without America.

So I’ve come to Europe this week to renew our partnership, one in which America listens and learns from our friends and allies, but where our friends and allies bear their share of the burden. Together, we must forge common solutions to our common problems.

So let me say this as clearly as I can: America is changing, but it cannot be America alone that changes. We are confronting the greatest economic crisis since World War II. The only way to confront this unprecedented crisis is through unprecedented coordination.

Speaking the truth. Being honest. Not lecturing others. Not claiming “exceptionalism.” Being humble yet assertive. How refreshing!

The fact that this is making the right apoplectic is just gravy! Hey wingnuts, I think that by “arrogant,’ he meant you!

Entire transcript

[Strasbourg is for lovers]

[Sign the petition to give the Legion of Honor to Bill Maher
Update 4/5/09: petition is scratched]

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So tomorrow, on the occasion of NATO’s 60th anniversary, France will officially rejoin the alliance’s military command, reversing De Gaulle’s 43-year old decision to withdraw.

Frankly, I’m not convinced this is the right thing to do. Admittedly, I’m in the minority.

The French Armed Forces are now the largest military in Europe with the 3rd highest expenditure of any military in the world, the 3rd largest nuclear force in the world, after the U.S. and Russia, and the only country besides the U.S. to have a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. We can defend ourselves even if the U.S. is bogged down somewhere else (as it was at the time in Vietnam, which was part of the reasoning for the pullout) and we can decide whether to join a military operation on its merits, not on whether it will please or displease Washington. Iraq proves that being independent is a good idea.

There’s one thing that’s pretty obvious about our national character: we’re independent, and we don’t like to follow like sheep! I fear that rejoining NATO will seriously compromise that independence.

What do you think?

[Related: France mulls taking in Algerian Guantanamo inmate]

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So Sarko has threatened to walk out of the G20 if stricter banking regulations than that being proposed by the U.S. and Britain were not adopted.

Will he, or won’t he?

And will he get what he wants?

The watch is on.

[A new world order?]

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I really thought I would like Obama. But after 2 months of his reign, I’m disappointed. Look at what he has done, wrecking the world’s economy, catering to Europe’s every whims, and generally making a fool of himself on the world stage! Hasn’t even started a single war yet!

Bring back George Bush!

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This isn’t the first time I’ve had a change of heart:

http://superfrenchie.com/?p=1508
http://superfrenchie.com/?p=1245
http://superfrenchie.com/?p=651

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OK, it’s not terribly well-written, the author is not very well-known, the item on French fries is moronic (French fries are Belgian), and the two negatives are obviously made only to provide balance.

Then again, when is the last time that a piece like this with a title like this appeared in an American magazine? Moreover one with a million circulation!

So here it is, in full:

We Are All French Now

Posted by: Bruce Nussbaum on March 29

OK, we Americans need to face it. The French were right. We were wrong. Yes, this is a provocation but there’s a lot of truth to it. Let’s go down the list:

The Iraq War: Yep, the French said there was no real reason, no weapons of mass destruction, no Al Queda—and they were right.

Neoliberal free market capitalism. Yep, the French wanted more regulation and less globalization and the US wanted no regulation and total globalization. The resulting financial/economic disaster shows—the French were right. National Champions? The US government is now picking corporations and banks it wants to survive. The French always did.

Global Warming/ Cap and Trade. Yes, the French were for it. US against. Now, the US is racing to catch up. So…the French were right.

Health Care. The US insurance-dominated system costs twice as much as France’s with poorer health outcomes. The French public/private health care system is a better model. Hey, doctors actually come to your house in France. Yep, the French were right.

Wine. The French always said wine was good for you. The US had to spend billions in scientific research to prove that wine is good for your heart. So…the French were right. I’m waiting for the results on cheese.

Food. The French have always been into local, seasonal food. Americans are just beginning to “get it.” France has always had artisanal cheeses, breads, pates, etc. Yep, Americans are just getting into it. So…the French were right.

Sure, the French still need lessons in making entrepreneurs who take risk (all the young French hotshots leave for New York and London). And the very idea of electing a black man to lead France is still shocking. France has a way to go in race relations.

But, all in all, Americans would do well to remember that we really do love French Fries. And we are all French now.

h/t OhBoudu. Bold titles are mine.

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From the NY Times:

Despite his immense popularity around the world, Mr. Obama will confront resentment over American-style capitalism and resistance to his economic prescriptions when he lands in London on Tuesday for the Group of 20 summit meeting of industrial and emerging market nations plus the European Union.

The president will not even try to overcome NATO’s unwillingness to provide more troops in Afghanistan when he goes on later in the week to meet with the military alliance.

He seems unlikely to return home with any more to show for his attempts to open a dialogue with Iran’s leaders, who have, so far, responded with tough words, albeit not tough enough to persuade Russia to support the United States in tougher sanctions against Tehran. And he will be tested in face-to-face meetings by the leaders of China and Russia, who have been pondering the degree to which the power of the United States to dominate global affairs may be ebbing.

[...]

The challenges stem in part from lingering unhappiness around the world at the way the Bush administration used American power. But they have been made more intense by the sense in many capitals that the United States is no longer in any position to dictate to other nations what types of economic policies to pursue — or to impose its will more generally as it intensifies the war in Afghanistan and extracts itself from Iraq.

“There is a direct challenge under way to the paradigms that America has been trying to sell to the rest of the world,” said Eswar S. Prasad, a former China division chief at the International Monetary Fund. The American banking collapse, which precipitated the global meltdown, has led to a fundamental rethinking of the American way as a model for the rest of the world. Yet even as his presence stirs opposition to particular American policies, Mr. Obama is being welcomed by many Europeans as an embodiment of American ideals.

[...]

And Mr. Obama must try to do all of that in the middle of a global recession for which most of the world blames the United States. “The U.S. brand name has clearly suffered from this crisis, and the rest of the world is no longer willing to sit quietly and be lectured by the United States on how they should conduct economic policy,” Mr. Rogoff said.

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One downside of the economic blindness of the last few years is this: whether it’s in energy, high-speed transit, communication technologies or Internet broadband, the US has fallen behind in recent years.

And now, they need us to help them catch up.

From the WaPo:

U.S. firms are not the only ones hoping to cash in on the $787 billion stimulus program. Foreign nations and companies are stepping up their lobbying efforts in Washington and in state capitals, hoping to gain vital business in hard times. Hundreds of foreign-owned companies, many of them with significant operations in the United States, are selling their expertise in clean energy, high-speed transit and other technologies that undergird key aspects of President Obama’s stimulus efforts.

[...]

“Once you get into some of these specialized technologies, only one or a few companies worldwide can provide it,” said Jayson Myers, president and chief executive of Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters, an Ottawa-based industry group. “If you want to advance the innovation priorities of the Obama administration, it becomes very difficult without involving foreign companies.”

Take Alcatel-Lucent or Alstom, for example:

Telecommunications companies such as Alcatel-Lucent of France, for example, and its New Jersey-based research arm, Bell Labs, are eligible to seek part of $7.2 billion in stimulus money set aside for upgrading broadband networks. Most global firms specializing in the transit and high-speed rail projects envisioned under the stimulus act are based in other countries — Canada’s Bombardier and France’s Alstom, for example. Transurban Group of Australia, which is helping develop high-speed toll lanes along the Capital Beltway, is a world leader in developing toll roads.

Thanks, United States of America’s taxpayers!

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Greg Gutfeld, host of Fox News’ “Red Eye” show, last week, about Canada’s war in Afghanistan, among other gems [video]:

The Canadian military wants to take a breather to do some yoga, paint landscapes, run on the beach in gorgeous white Capri pants.

Canadian Defense Minister Peter MacKay, among many expressions of outrage, said this in response to the comment:

I think it is an uninformed view. It is crass. It is insensitive and it is in fact disgusting given the timing, when Canada is just receiving back four fallen heroes today. There should be an apology to the families in particular and to the Canadian Forces and to Canada generally, given the sacrifice and the commitment that we have demonstrated in Afghanistan.

Greg Gutfeld yesterday:

I realize that my words may have been misunderstood. It was not my intent to disrespect the brave men, women and families of the Canadian military, and for that I apologize.

And they’re not even done.

A lesson for us? For our embassy? our Ministry of Defense? our Foreign Ministry?

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Some quotes from those happy times:

“There’s a lot of money to pay for this. It doesn’t have to be U.S. taxpayer money.” (Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Defense Secretary, 3/03)

“I can’t tell you if the use of force in Iraq today will last five days, five weeks or five months, but it won’t last any longer than that.” (Don Rumsfeld, 11/02)

“My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.” (Dick Cheney, 3/03)

“And a year from now, I’ll be very surprised if there is not some grand square in Baghdad that is named after President Bush.” (Richard Perle, Former Assistant Defense Secretary, 9/03)

“Iraq not only hasn’t accounted for its weapons of mass destruction but without a doubt still retains them. Only a fool — or possibly a Frenchman — could conclude otherwise.” (Richard Cohen, Washington Post, 2/03)

“Punish France, ignore Germany, and forgive Russia.” (Condoleezza Rice, 2003)

“We were right, they [the French] were wrong, and I’m here.” (Colin Powell, 9/03)

TED KOPPEL: (Off Camera) “All right, this is the first. I mean, when you talk about 1.7, you’re not suggesting that the rebuilding of Iraq is gonna be done for $1.7 billion?’

ANDREW NATSIOS, director of USAID: “Well, in terms of the American taxpayers contribution, I do, this is it for the US. The rest of the rebuilding of Iraq will be done by other countries who have already made pledges, Britain, Germany, Norway, Japan, Canada, and Iraqi oil revenues, eventually in several years, when it’s up and running and there’s a new government that’s been democratically elected, will finish the job with their own revenues. They’re going to get in $20 billion a year in oil revenues. But the American part of this will be 1.7 billion. We have no plans for any further-on funding for this.”

“They may be five or six men conducting isolated attacks against our soldiers.” (Paul Bremer, June 12, 2003, about the guerilla)

“I guess the reason I don’t use the phrase “guerrilla war” is because there isn’t one” (Rumsfeld, June 30, 2003, about the same guerilla (or rather the absence of such guerilla…)

While the economic crisis seems to have rendered the American media a bit apathetic and listless with its usual French-bashing, the Brits are doubling down! In some kind of a re-run of what happened when Iraq turned into the full-fledged disaster that we know of in 2004 and 2005, and the US media at the time redoubled its attacks on those who got it right, it now seems like its British counterpart is intent on helping its readers forgive that for the last 20 years, they have been lecturing us about their economic model, only to see it crash heavily, with their economy falling behind ours.

They’re also not being exactly subtle!

Exhibit A: this piece by some bigoted idiot named Marcus Dunk in the Daily Mail online. He must have had a serious deadline to beat because instead of turning in a column, he basically went on some Internet joke site, typed “French army jokes” and copied and pasted all the 2003 balderdash that had lately been laying there mostly dormant. Some columnist!

Exhibit B: this piece by Allan Little for BBC News, rehashing that favorite of British French-bashers and accusing us of somehow believing a myth that the French saved themselves alone in World War II.

Like Dunk, Little must have been on a tight deadline. I’m no historian but it took me just 2 minutes of research to find out that the quote in his first paragraph is mistakenly attributed to Johnson when it was in fact spoken by his Secretary of State Dean Rusk. I’m also no renowned mathematician, but I’m fairly versed in the use of a calculator, and 19 divided by 4572 is 100 times greater than 0.004%. Finally, while being no great researcher, it only took clicking on one of the sidebar links next to Little’s very column to find out plenty of evidence contradicting his own account of the 60th anniversary of Paris’ liberation in August of 2004. Maybe he missed it, but it doesn’t seem that having “two columns of vehicles, one French and one American, [retracing] the soldiers’ journey into the capital” is ignoring the Allies.

Exhibit C: the usual, Bremner and one of his recurring Vichy blog posts, only meant to enflame the bunch of xenophobic zealots that passes for his readership. I mean, a street number was changed!

h/t to Stuart and peamak.

[The pic? Well, that's one point the British media can gloat about...]

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Several people sent me this NY times column by Roger Cohen, titled “One France Is Enough.” This might be a surprise to them: in substance, I agree with it. One France is enough!

Sure, one can argue about the caricatural aspects of the article, such as “the state as all-embracing solution” (our healthcare, as an example, is currently MORE private than the U.S.’), the taxes (our corporate taxes are lower than in the US), the high unemployment (more French males age 25 to 54 are employed in France than in the US) or the lack of innovation (we’re world leaders in high speed trains, nuclear energy, satellite launching, aircrafts, etc) but I agree with the gist of the column: The U.S. shouldn’t try to become France, just as France shouldn’t try to become the U.S.

We have two distinct business cultures. They both can work reasonably well. We’ve had to endure years of being lectured by Americans telling us how superior their model really is and how bad ours was. Now that their model is crashing, it’s refreshing to have that toned down a bit. But it would be a pity if we were to move to the other extreme and have America adopt the French model.

Our business cultures are different because we have different visions of what constitutes success. It may be that some Americans would prefer our vision of more personal time and more equality. My feeling after living here for so many years is that America is unique because those Americans, for better or for worse, are a distinct minority. So be it and the better for both our people.

My advice to America: solve your problems your way. Just stop lecturing the rest of the world that what works for you will work for everybody else!

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Looks like the Brits may no longer have that “special relationship” with the US. From the Wapo:

Our British cousins are getting the feeling that the new administration doesn’t fancy them.

The murmurs began when President Obama returned to the British Embassy the Winston Churchill bust that had been displayed in the Oval Office since Tony Blair lent it to George W. Bush.

The fears intensified when press secretary Robert Gibbs, announcing British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s visit to the White House, demoted the Churchillian phrase “special relationship” to a mere “special partnership” across the Atlantic.

And the alarm bells really went off when Brown’s entourage landed at Andrews Air Force Base on Monday night. Obama, breaking with precedent, wouldn’t grant the prime minister the customary honor of standing beside him in front of the two nations’ flags for the TV cameras. The Camp David sleepover that Blair got on his first meeting with Bush? Sorry, chaps.

Still, Brown was the first Euro head of state to visit, something Sarko was apparently lusting for….

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Addendum to the ‘And Al Gore invented the Internet…‘ post: Joerg at Atlantic Review added that it wasn’t just the automobile that Obama claimed as an American invention, but solar energy, too:

We invented solar technology, but we’ve fallen behind countries like Germany and Japan in producing it.

According to Marc Ambinder, it’s Willoughby Smith, an English scientist, who first discovered that selenium was photoconductive, and Alexandre-Edmond Becquerel, a French scientist, who discovered the photovoltaic effect. Both discoveries are the basis of “solar technology.”

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Write your own caption.

More here.

Obama last night, about the auto industry:

“I believe the nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it.”

Huh, Barack, while Henry Ford certainly deserves credit for inventing car assembly lines, French inventor Nicolas Cugnot came up with a steam-powered car in 1769, and German Karl Benz built the first internal combustion engine’s car.

Yeah, I know, I know, making Americans feel good and all that…

History of the automobile

h/t to… Couvrot(!) and… Fox News(!)

(At least, for the first time in a while, the speech was in English…)

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The story [fr], as presented by French daily Le Monde: an American woman, a tourist, runs out of money in France and is forced to spend the winter homeless in Paris. Details include the alleged refusal of her embassy to help her. However, after being contacted by the newspaper, said embassy claims a misunderstanding and offers to loan her the money. But… she refuses, thinking that since she has now lost everything in the US (apartment, car, job, etc…) she will be better off being homeless in France than homeless in the US. After grumbling against violence, an unjust economy and the end of the “Land of Opportunity” in the US, she concludes:

“Here, even the homeless have a better quality of life”

The controversy: SF blogger Claude thinks Le Monde is doing some arrogant sanctimonious America-bashing! I think that unless the quotes (or the facts of the story) are selective, the story is an interesting one and all the reporter does is quoting the woman.

Some facts: France has about 100,000 homeless people, the U.S. has about 740,000. Similar numbers per capita.

America-bashing, or fair reporting? Take a side!

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Marc at Miquelon.org has just lowered its French-bashing level indicator to between ‘Low’ and ‘Guarded’.

‘Guarded‘ means French-bashing is practiced by the likes of Howard Stern and talk radio. It also includes Leno but it seems Marc has been successful in shutting him up. ‘Low‘ means the bashing activity is reserved to racist hate sites such as fuckfrance and no pasaran.

While I still see a suspicious preoccupation in the US media for anything that concerns France, from the economic anxiety suffered by our cafe owners to the behavior of our nudists to the size of our condoms (seriously, try to find a tenth of this kind of trivia about Spaniards, Germans or Italians!), it seems that the depth of the economic crisis has started to seriously temper the level of arrogance usually displayed by your average American columnist or blogger when France is the subject. No longer that easy to call our economy a “dismal failure” or the French a “bunch of socialists” in the present circumstances. I suppose the other time-honored bashing topics suffer in lockstep.

Will it last? I’m not sure. The failure of the Iraq war, while prompting many to recognize that “France was right“, didn’t do very much to abate the spiteful language. It might even be argued that it increased it. This time might be different. We shall see.

Are you hopeful?

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Update, right on cue:

From the Philadelphia Inquirer, about Salma Hayek’s wedding with François-Henri Pinault:

The 42-year-old Mexican-born star exchanged vows on Valentine’s Day with François-Henri Pinault, 46, the baguette- ‘n’ brie-eating surrender monkey (as a rude xenophobe might put it)

“As a rude xenophobe might put it“? A genuine admission? Or a new, more PC way to bash?

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Excerpts from the article:

In many ways our economy already resembles a European one. As boomers age and spending grows, we will become even more French

This is not to say that berets will be all the rage this spring, or that Obama has promised a croissant in every toaster oven. But the simple fact of the matter is that the political conversation, which shifts from time to time, has shifted anew, and for the foreseeable future Americans will be more engaged with questions about how to manage a mixed economy than about whether we should have one.

The Obama administration is caught in a paradox. It must borrow and spend to fix a crisis created by too much borrowing and spending. Having pumped the economy up with a stimulus, the president will have to cut the growth of entitlement spending by holding down health care and retirement costs and still invest in ways that will produce long-term growth. Obama talks of the need for smart government. To get the balance between America and France right, the new president will need all the smarts he can summon.

Related: Have you noticed that Barack Obama sounds more like the president of France every day?

h/t Old Frog.

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Today is Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday.

Not that many Americans would care: less than 4 in 10 accept evolution as a scientific fact!

In 2005, a similar survey showed that among the views of people from 34 countries, the U.S. ranked next to last for public acceptance of evolution. Only Turkey ranked lower. France was ranked 4th, with about 80% of the population accepting evolution. Iceland, Denmark and Sweden were ranked 1st, 2nd and 3rd, respectively.

Not surprisingly, the less educated you are, the more ignorant you are (Duh!): only 21% of those with just a high school education accept evolution, compared to 74% of those with a post-graduate degree (which is still very low!) Beliefs in imaginary beings also have a lot to do with it: 55% who don’t attend church accept evolution, versus just 24% of weekly churchgoers.

With the notable exception of the United States, religiosity levels are strongly related to standards of living: 8 of the 11 countries in which almost all residents (at least 98%) say religion is important in their daily lives are poorer nations in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. By contrast, the 10 least religious countries include several with the world’s highest living standards (France is #9 on that list.) The religiosity in the United States is on par with that of Iran, Iraq, or Haiti. Vermont, the US’ least religious state (42% say religion is important) is still twice as religious as France as a whole (25%).

[Did Frenchie Jean-Baptiste Lamarck discover evolution before Darwin?]

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Source.

Note to French-bashers: there’s more and more of us [fr] to bash!

834,000 French babies were born in 2008. That makes France’s population 64.3 million people, up 366,500 from a year earlier.

The fertility rate is now 2.02, up from last year (1.98) the highest in Europe and just short of the 2.07 children per woman needed for generations to be replaced. The average in the EU is much lower at 1.50. In the West, only the U.S. is still higher (barely) than France’s at 2.05.

The big news: a majority (52%) of babies are now born of non-married couples. Not surprising, since civil unions (Pacs) are now favored by about 1 out of 3 couples.

French life expectancy is stable this year, at 77.5 years for men and 84.3 years for women. (U.S.: 75.15 for men and 80.67 for women)

And to those who tell us the higher fertility rate is due to the immigrant Muslim population, look up France’s most popular names. Not a single Muslim-sounding one in the top 40, both girls and boys. Mohamed is the first one on the boys’ side at #47, and Louna on the girls’ side at #53.

No, what seems to work are family-friendly policies: affordable day-care, maternity and paternity leave, free kindergarten as early as 3 years old, etc…

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With only hours to go (finally!), and 6 years after it reached the height of international stupidity with the freedom fries name change, the Bush administration has decided to get into one more food fight by imposing a 300% tariff on… Roquefort!

Supposedly a retaliatory move against the EU’s ban on hormone-treated beef and part of a long list of targeted goods, the French cheese is still the only one to see its tariff go all the way to 300%.

Not that it’s gonna have any effect. The exports to the US account for just 2% of annual sales, and Roquefort producers would be the last ones to ask for a lifting of the US beef ban: they promoted it. Just ask France’s most famous Roquefort producer, José Bové!

Jacques Mistral, the head of economic research at the French Institute of Foreign Relations in Paris, had this to say:

“Even from this administration, I was astounded by such a grotesque, petty and inefficient gesture in its last hours in office. No U.S. sector benefits from this, and there’s no way the E.U. will reverse its ban on hormone-raised beef that consumers here don’t want. I suspect we’ll see this move reversed by the new administration as both obnoxious and futile.”

[No roquefort in U.S? Let them eat junk, French say]

More Roquefort discussion in the forum

The cartoon above is from April 2006. That was then, this is now:

The rest of the Newsweek article:
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