Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong Quotes

“But the past was never erased, probably because there’s just too much of it. Everything in France is built on layers of other things that existed before. The present in France is only a compromise between the past and the present.”
― Jean-Benoît Nadeau, Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't be Wrong: What Makes the French So French

“Americans have no past, while Europeans are loaded down by ancient customs, habits, and prejudices that shape their behaviour.”
― Jean-Benoît Nadeau, Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't be Wrong: What Makes the French So French

“France actually had the first ever pension schemes: the Invalides, a hostel built by Louis XIV and his prime minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619–83), for disabled soldiers.”
― Jean-Benoît Nadeau, Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong

“France has and will have political and economic problems like any other country. But it works. What makes it work is the harmony between the spirit of the French and the structures they have given themselves, structures that are genuinely theirs.”
― Jean-Benoît Nadeau, Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong

“France is too different. It is a centralized county with political reflexes that are completely alien to North Americans, including a penchant for authoritarianism and disdain for compromise. France has no local government and no competing political jurisdictions. Its legal system functions on principles, not jurisprudence, and is controlled by politicians, not the other way around. The French don’t just glorify their élite; French society needs a clearly identified élite. The whole education system is designed to produce an élite to run their institutions. The French strongly believe in the common good and happily grant the State all the powers and privileges it requires to act for the common good. They affirm the State’s role in virtually everything—culture, language, welfare, and the economy. The market economy is important in France, but the French don’t glorify it.”
― Jean-Benoît Nadeau, Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong

“We Americans unjustly hold the French to a New World standard, the authors state. But they're no more New World than the Japanese.”
― Jean-Benoît Nadeau, Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong