PROBLEMS IN THE HEXAGON

"The hexagon" is a common French synonym for France. A map will show you why

French arrogance crumbling? "This week marked the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Paris, but the champagne corks were flying beneath clouds of French despair. As the Government of Jacques Chirac tries to mend chronic flaws in the country's social fabric -- highlighted by a rise in racist and anti-Semitic violence -- the French intelligentsia is lamenting the nation's loss of diplomatic clout and cultural authority.. . The mood of national lamentation is summed up by philosopher Chantal Delsol, who asks: "How is it that such a brilliant nation has become such a mediocre power, so out of breath, so indebted, so closed in its own prejudices ... To be French today is to mourn for what we no longer are." In the past few years many of the nation's delusional bubbles have been pricked one by one... "

And The Guardian reports this summary of the French predicament: "The economy is suffocating. Big industrial groups are investing elsewhere," he said. "The best-off are fleeing, the most talented are leaving. Even the middle classes are demoralised by the taxation levels."

Self-inflicted economic woes: "The latest reports on France's socialistic economy portray a bleak picture of French workers on a treadmill running faster and faster just to stay in place. The French unemployment rate has soared to 9.5 percent, and the economic growth rate over the past year has trudged forward at the turtle-like speed of 1.5 percent (versus about 4.5 percent for the U.S.). If the U.S. had an unemployment rate as high as France, there would be about six million more Americans out of work - the equivalent of putting every worker in the state of Michigan in an unemployment line"

There is a TREMENDOUS demolition job done on French history by Prof. Christie Davies here. Just one excerpt: "Ninety years ago in August 1914 Britain was dragged into a war between France and Germany for which France was largely to blame. It was that French war that fatally undermined British power and thus Britain's ability and willingness to withstand the Nazi and Soviet threats that were the very consequence of the war that France began. Not for the first time France had reduced Europe to ruins with her insane and criminal aggression". He goes on to argue that the French were just as Nazi-inclined as the Germans.

I linked to this article on 12th March but two people have recently sent me copies of it so I guess it is worth another note. It is by a former Francophile and describes the pervasive antisemitism of the French. It shows how pathetic France is and why their moral posturing should be totally ignored. One quote: "This, it seems, is their new Maginot line: the sneer of hatred. Hand in hand with the government and the intellectual classes, the French media are channeling the national dismay over lost grandeur into contempt for America."

Incidentally, has anybody used the new blogger search bar at the head of this blog? I entered the word "Francophile" and it found nothing. My post of 12th March was invisible to it. Pretty useless! I found the entry in my files by using good old Ctrl+F.

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