The French Revolution is, I agree, one of the finest examples of change in the modern world. But one thing we can learn from it is that change is gradual and often slow. President Obama put it best last month while fielding questions from Turkish students in Istanbul. "States are like big tankers, they're not like speedboats. You can't just whip them around and go in a new direction. Instead, you've got to slowly move it and then eventually you end up in a very different place." Yes, Napoleon's ten year reign was glorious, but where were the French back in 1830? Revolution, chaos. 1848? The same thing. The Bastille was stormed in 1789, but didn't burn until 1830. Life in France during that period was - difficult, unpleasant.
It is very French, everything mentioned in this article. Michael Johnson's perspective on the matter is a rare one, and not even for a minute do I envy his responsibilities. He really lays in on the French. Towards the end, I found myself wondering, "Can he do that?" Good thing the French don't read the New York Times, let alone their own newspapers.
I gained some insight into workers’ attitudes when I moved from London to Paris to manage part of a French publishing company a few years ago. This was not a workplace I recognized.
The standoff between French labor and management is accepted as normal, hardened through decades of mutual suspicion. The two parties tend to consider their interests to be mutually exclusive.
I was surprised how often my staff spoke of “revolution,” seemingly nostalgic for their 1789 upheaval when the guillotine cleared the way for change. Even today, television pundits and trade union leaders talk earnestly of revolution brewing. Hyperbole? Probably, but indicative of the cultural conditioning.
In France, workers expect their companies to balance financial performance with the care and protection of their employees. If the company fails, the state is there to provide.
Here's where Johnson really digs in.
Despite the forces of globalization, the French worker does indeed give less than a 100 percent to the job. Individuality and personal life are prized above all, and friendships tend to be outside the workplace. This makes team-building difficult for the manager but allows the worker a richer outside existence.
Studies show that in the United States excessive devotion to work serves to limit one’s family life, cultural pursuits and personal development. Americans work longer hours, adding up to about two months more per year than the French.
This article confirms several suppositions I have been mulling over these past few weeks. I have little patience for French prudence in their professional and personal lives. It is still a very classist society, and in a nation that has experienced a great deal of immigration in the past fifty years, it's native French have become snobbish and racist. Thanks to this article, I can now say that these things date back to the First Empire, Second Empire and the Third Republic: the height of France's power.
The 20th century has not been kind to France, that much is certain. The Third, Fourth and Fifth Republics are responsible for a great number of domestic and international follies, begging the question: is France deserving of the title of world power? These are the Dreyfus Affair, the military imprudence in the Great War of 1914, colonization in Southeast Asia, World War Two, Vichy France, and the French-Algerian War. The empirical state of mind was slow to leave the French. John F. Kennedy once wrote, "We must make [democracy] work right now. Any system of government will work when everything is going well. It is the system that functions in the pinches that survives."
I don't know if I'll live to see the end to French snobbism, though I long to see that day come. Yes, their current system has its flaws, but they are not what has caused the global economic recession. Just because theirs is a socialist political system doesn't mean it should thrown out in response to these thin times. France didn't start feeling the economic crisis until late last year, nearly a year after personnel cuts began in the US.
This may be due to the French economy, which bears little significance globally. One third of France works for France. Americans work longer hours, adding up to about two months more per year than the French.
A woman in Paris once said to me, "I'd like to send my daughter to the US, but Americans play far too many sports." Perhaps she was also afraid her daughter might break a sweat, or worse, might think too hard.
enjoy these mp3 snacks with your coffee!
Dirty Projectors - Stillness Is the Move
Siouxsie and the Banshees - Hong Kong Garden
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Heads Will Roll
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