Sarkozy Forces the French to Join the 1980s: Michael Lewis
9th August 2008
Read it.
At length, I went to the middle-aged shop owner and asked where she’d hidden my favorite treats — this gift from the gods to those of us who want to pretend our cookies are merely crackers.
“We used to stock those,” she said, sweetly, “but we kept running out, so we’ve stopped.”
To the extent that the French enjoy a natural advantage, it is in their inefficiency: They are the world’s most efficient producers of structured indolence. They are the kept women of the global economy; their status depends, in part, on their practical uselessness.
Reinvent the British and you get a global finance center, edible food and better service. Reinvent the French and you may just get more Germans.