I read recently an article about a new book: Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong:...


In 1999, Canadian journalists Nadeau and Barlow moved to Paris for a two-year fellowship to study France's culture and economy in an effort to understand French puzzle : The French smoke, drink and eat more fat than anyone in the world, yet they live longer and have fewer heart problems than Americans. They take seven weeks of paid vacation per year, yet have the world’s highest productivity index. From a distance, modern France looks like a riddle. But up close, it all makes sense. Sixty Million Frenchmen Can’t Be Wrong shows how the pieces of the puzzle fit together.

They explain also, for instance, why so many foreigners find French waiters and shop assistants stroppy. For a start, few foreigners bother with "bonjour" and "au revoir", essential to even the most basic commercial transaction. To treat the buying of a baguette or the ordering of a coffee as a mere exchange of money for goods without formalities is grossly mercantile and rude....

Well it seems an interesting book to me, and I am sure it will be useful to a lot of people I know :grin:

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